Umbrellas

I hate umbrellas.

As much as I've tried to open myself up to the idea of these things being a good idea, I simply can't accept them into my life.

It's been raining a LOT over the past week. Here's what it's going to be like for the next week:

Still wet, yet I refuse to use a brolly:

• They're a right old pain carry aloft above your head
• You're left with only one free hand
  
• They don't protect you from sideways rain
• They are vulnerable to wind
• You have nowhere to put the things when you're nipping in and out of shops
• They take up too much space when lots of people are carrying them on a busy pavement
• Some bastards even poke your eyes out with the pokey end bits of them
• They're a right old pain to carry around "in case it rains"
• Entire corridors in the work place are often rendered umbrella assault courses as users dry theirs outside of their offices
• They're for tossers
  

Stupid things, that's what they are.

Not like Kagouls! Kagouls are ace. I managed to find myself a plain black one (from Millet's, thanks FT) before the journey up to the Lakes. Trump got one too, but we didn't go for matching; there are plenty in the Sisterhood who dress in matching clothes with matching hairdos (see any civil partnership ceremony photos) without us two joining the ranks.

I was very pleased with my kagoul. Look, here's me being pleased while wearing it:

So the Lakes, what were they like? Wet, but not so bad as we were trapped in the hotel; trapped with this bed head! Not bed head as in "bad hair brought about by sleeping", as in the head of the bed- just look at that chintztasticness!

Anyway, I now have to write this again because my PC went tits up while I was trying to compose the frigging post. Pile of shite.

So what was it like up there? The weather could've been better, but it wasn't raining all the time and we managed to go for a few wanders, starting off at Bowness on Windermere, which I think is the largest lake up there.

Bowness is a nice little town, but you can see that it could be in danger of becoming run down. This chap was clearly disgusted at the high levels of duck excrement that was all over the shore of the lake. It's hard to understand why the dirty little fuckers don't do their business while in the water, like I would.

A few miles up the road, you can grasp the full beauty of the area when you pull into a parking area to see this.

See, the sun did shine while we were there. It was nice to be able to park up and take in the calming scenery while enjoying an ice cream. Particularly since I'd just been run off the road by yet another shitforbrains coach driver who didn't know the width of their own vehicle and didn't have the sense to reverse 10 metres so I could get to a passing space and instead forced me to drive through the shrubbery in the verge. Idiot.

Further up the road, it becomes the Kirkstone Pass - I think this is the highest bit or something. See how it's so high it's in the clouds!

There's a pub at the summit called the Kirkstone Pass Inn. It's a very traditional place with roaring log fires in the winter - it also has the tiniest ladies' toilet on the planet.

Spring is a nice time to visit anywhere in England (apart from the weather being predictably be awful). Everything is very fresh and the spring flowers and blossoms can be spectacular. This photo doesn't do any justice to this bit of bluebell woodland that we came across, but it gives some of the idea of what it was like.

The Lake District prides itself on its unspoilt beauty, with lots of lovely quaint towns and villages dotted about it. Most of the towns are tourist traps that are rich in their variety of shops for the lovers of outdoor pursuits. Similar to our cities, the towns of the Lakes are becoming clones of each other. Ambleside is a pretty popular place, full of walkers, all in matching kagouls (it's just not the done thing!), carrying those walking pole things. But you can feel the charm there. There's something nice and English about it - expensive and wet.

At Ullswater, you can get yourself very dizzy by watching the swallows dunking into the water. These little buggers are impossible to photograph, but you have to try...

So yes, it was all very pretty and enjoyable. The bed in the hotel was a bit "soft" and it dipped in the middle. With unavoidable roll-together, Trump was a little annoyed at waking with my elbow in her face on Saturday morning. Being the loving type, she gently kissed it and pushed it away, uttering the words "there now my darling, you have plenty of room over there". Oh, no, it was more of an angry shove and a "get your elbow out of my face!". Ho hum.

British hotels are ace - all too similar to Fawlty Towers ("Flowery Twats") - and the reception guy did a bit of a double take when he saw the two of us were sharing a "that's a double room with bed and breakfast?" He didn't make much eye contact.


The number of the Beast

On returning to civilisation, we engaged in chimp activity and it was during this that THIS was discovered:

it might be easier to see it on this one....

When I questioned "Mother" she claimed that I'd always had this "birth mark". So why hadn't she told me? I still believe that I am adopted, but now I am sure that my natural parents aren't gypsies as I'd once thought. No, I am convinced that I was born to a whore of Satan who engaged in depraved sexual acts with a hound from the very depths of Hell!!!!!!

Actually, I think it's actually just a birth mark, but it's weird when you find something out about yourself for the first time.