Little Langdale

Back on the road north, we left a glorious view from the patio of the house that we stayed in that, if you read yesterday's blip, you will know has been lost from my photographic record. We travelled over Hardknott and Wrynose passes that had the disc brakes on the Jeep sizzling.

This spot in Little Langdale is one of my favourite places in the Lake District. I first came here as a 12-year-old in the boy scouts, then returned with my family and stayed in one of the properties you can see on the far side of the tarn.

The grey house on the hill, to the right of the cluster of houses that includes some white houses, is called High Hallgarth. It used to be owned by two sisters who left it to the National Trust on condition that they didn't modernise the place. This means that the loo facilities are a bit primitive since it has an outside earth closet and a tin bath.

But we loved the place and would recommend it to anyone for a quiet week away from it all. It was here that Alan Sillitoe spent a month working on his fourth novel, Key to the Door. I spent a fascinating afternoon with Sillitoe a few years ago at his apartment in London. He wrote with great candour.

We stopped for just a couple of minutes in Ambleside to buy one of the apple pies from the apple pie shop that is a must if you go there. Then it was on to the Dee and the start of our fishing week.