Ambleside Games

Image via Wikipedia

Last Thursday in July it’s the Ambleside Games – I wake nice and early. The rest of the pack wake but amble through the morning in a fairly indolent way.

Sometimes I think my patience is wearing thin with these humans and we need to set up a more disciplinary regime! Anyway we get on the way eventually. Nice day – bright but not too hot.

The games are great with sprinting and cycling on grass tracks and all sorts of groups running up the fells and then Cumberland wrestling.

Number 1 gets really excited – he has joined the Wainwright Society ! I really haven’t a clue what that is  – further enquiries reveal that it is to do with AW (picture on the right) – the man who did the Guides to the Lakeland Fells – all crafted by hand with amazing maps and drawings. To be honest I was just listening in and picked this up – I’m not big on books.

However there was some brilliant cumberland sausage that really did impress me.

We met a lurcher man who told us he had a dog shop in Waterhead – a little spot very close to heaven at the top of Windermere. So we went on the way home and guess who got a fancy new coat to keep the nasty rain off me!

And following a bright sprint round the park and the water-meadow a wholesome snack and a nice snooze all the way back home!

Related Articles

• Mountain Walking in the Lake District: Central Lakeland Vistas (backpacking-trips.suite101.com)

holiday in the lakes

Image via Wikipedia

what a pose

Things are looking up! They found a nice dog friendly hotel at Waterhead which they tell me is at the northern end of Lake Windermere. According to Hunter Davis there is only one lake in the Lake District and that is Bassenthwaite so we are on Windermere! Hunter Davis wrote a popular book about the Lakes  – The Good Guide to the Lakes – with lots of facts and lists. He also wrote a biography of A. Wainwright – the awesome author of the Pictorial Guides – which Number 1 says  are the best guides in the world ever. A little susceptible to hyperbole me thinks! And he wrote about Wordsworth, Beatrix and Eddie Stobbart – all with Lakeland links and more later.

Educated or what! Surely this is the best dog blog in the world ever.

Anyway the hotel was Regent by the Lake which Numbers 1 and 2 really liked. They spent a lot of time in the shower anyway. And breakfast is served until midday so the hotel is very popular with lazy people.

I must say I enjoyed the food  – there was some gammon and Cumberland sausage. It was great for morning walks because there is a park just round the bend which leads to the ruins of Galava a Roman fort from 79AD and a wildflower pasture that was under lots of “mere”.

We visited Nick and Myra some old friends of 1 and 2 and apparently they had a nice lunch – I just recall a half hearted walk in the rain.

On the last day we went to a forest – Whinlatter. It was fantastic miles of wild space and not a single sheep to upset!