Ambleside

A typical Ambleside street - wet!

Stock Ghyll and the mill.

Why choose Hawes (in Wensleydale) and Betws-y-coed (in North Wales)?

Over the rooftops.

A typical slate wall.

When I was little our family used to spend every available summer holiday in the Lake District and as I grew up we would add occasional week-ends. When I reached my mid-teens I would also grab every possible school break or long weekend and youth hostel there. One of the things that symbolised the Lakes for me was the Bridge House at Ambleside. But I used to be frustrated that I couldn’t get a decent photo from the side.

The fixed lens of my original bellows camera wasn’t wide enough and one couldn’t step backwards because the trees then obscured the house and the wall hid the ghyll. Nothing really changed when I got a single lens reflex with separate wide angle lens and telephoto lens. I still couldn’t get a satisfactory shot. But modern digital cameras have such a wide angle lens that this was easy.

In the ‘olden days’ it was also impossible to see the bridge from the other side but that too has changed and all it lacked was sunshine. But then, it was Ambleside after all.

One year the family stayed in this cottage, in the town itself and we had a fortnight of continuous rain. We unpacked the car in the rain, we drove around in the rain, we walked in the rain (describing ourselves as lesser-wetted-hikers or greater-wetted-hikers according to how drenched we got), arrived back at the cottage and dried our clothes ready for the next day’s rain. We even repacked the car in the rain. It never stopped. And most of it was ‘Lake District Rain’ - the sort that soaks through to the bones in moments.  It was certainly a memorable holiday.