Castles, lakes and tickled trouts

And we're off... Boot full. First stop of a few? The Lake Districts. Just past the beautiful town of Windermere, on the banks of the eponymous lake, is Brockhole. A lush estate, it also has a rickety, giant wooden castle adventure play park, with ropes to scale and turrets to conquor... and slides for a quick escape. Worth the detour. (Apart from an accident involving a collapsing self-made wall and the wrong side of a padded mat...)

Escaping the magic car park with cameras that know who you are (or what car is yours at least), we headed south again to Preston and the Tickled Trout. For a hotel off a major road and next to a service station, it was good. Really good. We wee CEO always loves a good hotel and likes to test every light switch in the room. A few times, for good measure! And then the TV needs testing.

But we managed to convince him to leave, to eat tea on a promise that the pub had a play park. It did. But it turns out that 'cause of a function we couldn't get to it. The tears were stemmed by pizza. And a couple of pints.

Then, back at the hotel, as the wee guy went to sleep I was afforded the luxury of a beer in the hotel bar, with the World Cup for company. I even saw a trout leaping out the river, from the bar's terrace. Tickled indeed.