Saturday 22nd July
It was another drizzly morning but I still ventured out for a walk. Mark was feeling a bit under the weather so he stayed behind but maybe the Swans vs Fremantle game that was due to broadcast shortly was the real reason? We are just past the half-way mark of our 5 month trip so perhaps a day of rest and quiet was due. I filled in the rest of the morning doing yoga, some chores and shopping for some supplies. It was rather strange, though, how Mark recovered right at the same time that the footy finished; some would even call this remarkable, in the true sense of the word!
Although not raining it looked like the skies could open at any minute so, with Lazarus seemingly well enough to venture out, we opted for another one of the walks that we had been assured would be mud-free. This was the 4 mile (6.5 km) rail trail walk from Keswick to Threlkeld. The old train track had been removed and replaced with a smooth, bitumen, shared-path that was ideal for walking, strollers and bikes. The path weaved through the most picturesque landscape of beautiful green fields, through a few old train tunnels and across quite a number of pretty bridges as the Greta River meandered alongside the track for most of the length of the trail. The walk took us 75 minutes and we finished up at the small village of Threlkeld which has a nice coffee shop where you can fill in the time whilst waiting for the bus to take you back to Keswick. This is another venue though where I could easily get a job cooking scones. The return buses run every 60 minutes and the trip takes about 10 minutes. It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon, dismal weather or not, and is an activity I’d recommend if you’re ever in the area.
We got back to Keswick at around 4 pm and Mark stopped off at the Barber near our cottage for a hair cut. It was then another early night of dinner at the Derwent Walker Cocktail Bar & Restaurant. Their menu had recently changed to be fully tapas, it was previously only partly tapas, and this really didn’t appeal. My main issue with tapas is the lack of green vegetable options on these types of menus but the food was quite tasty so that was a positive. It was then back home for another early night and a Netflix movie. We watched a 2019 movie called The Red Sea Diving Resort which was based on the true events of evacuating Ethiopian Jews out of Sudan. I later saw this only scored 27% on Rotten Tomatoes but I thought it was pretty good and worth watching, considering it is based on a true story. The final credits show actual footage that parallels scenes from within the film.
Sunday 23rd July
It was another morning of rain in Keswick. We’ve been so lucky with the weather this trip thus far that we really can’t complain. It’s just unfortunate that we are in an area with a focus on the outdoors and the weather has worked against us.
With most wet-weather activities for Keswick exhausted, we set off south to visit Wray Castle and Ambleside, another of the Lakes District villages. It was a 40 minute drive to Wray Castle and this visit was a bit of a waste of time. The Castle only dates back to 1840 and just a few of the ground floor rooms are open to visit, and these are pretty much empty other than for an exhibition of Beatrix Potter’s fathers photos. We left shortly after paying the 6 GBP parking fee to go and wander around Ambleside but this village didn’t seem as compact and easy to navigate as Keswick, which made glad we hadn’t chosen to stay in this area. We stayed long enough to walk a few streets and have a sandwich for lunch before heading back to Keswick where we were back in our Cottage by 1.30 pm.
The rest of the afternoon was spent lazing around at the Cottage and I did some further checking of our future Booking.com lodgings. The fact I’ve little else to share with you all today means I am going to elaborate more on this accommodation topic in the following paragraphs.
We have been traveling now for coming up to 3 months and I have submitted quite a few reviews of our various accommodations. Some of them have been favourable and some of them not so favourable. I just happened to look back at one of the less than favourable reviews that I had posted (or, rather, warned people about!) on Booking.com; they send you an email to alert you once your review is posted. In this instance, when I went to the Booking.com site, I couldn’t find my review at all. Long story short, I have found that all of my favourable reviews can be found prominently displayed in the Booking.com review section. However, any of the less than favourable reviews tend to get buried.
I eventually worked out that the only way to see the full list of all the reviews, good, bad or whatever, needs a bit of finessing. One needs to click on the ‘Sort by’ tab for the review section that says ‘Newest First’. Only then could I see the full list of reviews. The default setting on Booking.com though, for me at least, is ‘Most Relevant’ which makes me wonder what they mean by this? Most relevant to whom? Certainly not to me, the user!
There is a lesson here for anyone who ever uses Booking.com to find accommodation and it is this: Check the reviews thoroughly following my suggestion. When you are looking at the Booking.com reviews:
- Click on the rating number that is a number out of 10 number. Example: 8.8
- Then, click on the ‘Sort by’ button in the drop down box. It will likely show ‘Most relevant’ as ticked.
- Change this ‘Most relevant’ to ‘Newest first’.
When I made this change, for the reviews of the lodging that I had rated less favorable, I then discovered I was not alone and that plenty of others had rated this property similarly. However, I couldn’t see these evaluations at first glance on the reviews page, I could only see them after doing the sort by ‘Newest first’. It’s a pretty sneaky way to bury honest but less than glowing reviews but at least I have learned a lesson here that I won’t forget.
This realization then made me wonder whether any of my future bookings on this portal might not be as highly recommended as I had originally been led to believe, based on the reviews. I have now gone and checked them all and, thankfully, most seem to be okay. I do have a concern about our next place in Liverpool though but we are going to wait and see what it’s like when we get there. If it’s awful we will try and debunk to a hotel. End of rant.
Back to Keswick: We ventured out again at 4.30 pm in search of somewhere to have an early dinner. This was the most ‘inhumane’ hour at which we have ever dined but, the surprising thing was, the restaurant at The Royal Oak was pretty full. It seems there isn’t much to do in this region when it rains other than eat! It’s at this stage I should point out that I don’t think Matthew Scarf should ever attempt to bring Susan to this part of the world. The dogs would drive her mad! I am a dog-person and they drove me mad! It had rained for much of the last few days and we’d been surrounded by dogs; on our walks, on the lake cruise, on the bus and in many of the cafes and restaurants where we visited. We were the only patrons in our lunch venue without a dog and there were plenty of dogs in the pub tonight as well. The fragrance of wet and smelly eau de dog fur, wafting over your evening meal, was not a pleasant experience. Our meal was fine, but the company was not! It seems dogs are quite a feature of The Lakes District and I hadn’t picked up on this in any of the research I had completed! It sounds like I’m complaining, I’m not. I’m just making you all aware of the foibles of folk in this region. We were home by 5.30 pm for another night of Netflix.
