Our Home For The Week
With spare holiday allowance to use for 2016 we decided to book a week away in the Lake District. It was the perfect excuse to have a break, relax and escape some of the pre Christmas shopping stress.
We booked a small cottage in the well known town of Ambleside. When we booked it I don't think I considered how long it would take us to drive up. From checking the trusty 'Sally SatNav' it informed us that it would take us just over 5 hours from Ipswich to get to this destination. Gulp! Luckily Garry likes to drive and took control of getting us to our destination safely.
We split the journey up and stopped on the M6 for a coffee break! Costa was mayhem and at one point I somehow started to help the staff serve other customers lunch so I could have my coffee made! How I didn't get my coffee for free I have no idea! I was soon distracted however with my first Christmas Costa mug of the season. Mr Penguin certainly made me smile!
The whole journey went relatively smoothly and we entered the Lakes around 3.30pm. Instantly we were met by a beautiful sunset across a sheep filled field. I was surprised how well the photo below came out though as it was taken from our moving car as we continued to head to Ambleside.
The cottage we booked was via a company known as 'The Heart of the Lakes' -the booking process was really easy and all online. For five days and four nights we paid £312 pounds for two people. The cottage we picked however could have slept up to six people for only an additional supplement per person. For all cottages through the website you pick the keys and parking permits up from the main office in Ambleside.
We picked Cloud Cottage - and I have added the link in case you are interested in staying here in the future. The parking permit provided does allow you to park outside the cottage, but the street is very narrow and the parking is limited. Luckily we were also supplied with a parking permit to use at some of the long stay carparks in Ambleside. We opted to drop our luggage off at the cottage before relocating the car to the main car park. It took us a matter of minutes to walk back to the cottage so really simple.
The cottage offered us everything we needed - it was clean, tidy and the heating had been left on for our arrival. I have taken a few pictures to show how lovely the cottage was. Although my photos below do not show this - it had been decorated for Christmas with a little tree. We also had a whole host of books, DVDs and puzzles to keep us entertained in the evenings. The only downfall is the cottage did not come with any wood for the log burner - however we did notice that Tesco's up in the main town had bags of wood for sale so relatively easy to get supplies if required.
