Life in Northern Towns

Day 1 So from Kendal we sped off to Windermere – to be exact Windermere Town. I thought we’d end up by the lakeside, but I forgot there were two Windermere’s – the Town (station) and Bowness-on-Windermere (lakeside). We hadn’t been to Windermere Town for years and it was a lovely little wander. Since the last time we’d been there more cafes had popped up. There were of course a few charity shops, but didn’t prove to be fruitful pickings for Neil. There was the big homeware shop with lots of knick-knacks to pick up for pressies and the home. There were very trendy type shops selling very well designed knick-knacks you never thought existed. Even the charity shops were packed full of vintage knick-knacks for all occasion. Slight blog detour / rant – I find the word vintage is a word that has become over used of late – it’s just the posh word for second-hand. The word second-hand doesn’t quite have the same cachet and it does annoy me when people use it to disguise the fa...

Day One We parked on the outskirts of Kendal in the Kirkland area of the town. Luckily for Neil I didn’t notice the art exhibition going on in the nearby Abbott Hall . It was a shame, as it did look good. Whilst the car park was handy, there was a rather officious parking attendant stalking the cars. He was primed and ready pounce on any car that exceeded the allotted time. There was already a car slapped with a parking notice, so I made a mental note of the time I needed to get back. The shops in Kendal fan off Highgate (A6) and the buildings are a hodge-podge of different shapes, sizes and eras reflecting the evolution of the town. The shops were the usual high street suspects although there was Booths - the Cumbria equivalent to Tescos. As it was Cumbria it had the addition of the Edinburgh Woollen Mill and outdoors shops selling outdoorsy-kill-yourself-whilst-climbing-up-a-stupid-hill-sort-of-stuff. There was a little market with a mishmash of odds and sods and yummy local...

Day One We decided at short notice to go to the Lakes for the weekend and this gave me the opportunity to do an epic Life in Northern Towns splurge – seven towns in total. So there are plenty of entries to read in the coming weeks: Kendal Windermere Town Grange-Over-Sands Cartmel Ulverston Coniston Ambleside As we decided at last minute to go up to the Lakes we struggled to find a hotel that was available for one night, reasonably priced and didn’t look like a dive in a lively location – we got three out of four. So courtesy of Laterooms , we settled on Grange-Over-Sands in the southernmost part of the Lake District overlooking Morecambe Bay. Anyway the drive up to the Lakes was okay - we hit a traffic jam where the M61 meets the M6, as it seems other people had the same idea to take a trip to the Lakes. We got to Kendal in an hour and fifteen minutes from a sunny, but riot torn Salford.