This is as days pass by, by Stuart Langridge

Back from hols! Things I have learned this week:

• There is virtually no interest in ghosts and whatnot in the Lake District. We looked in tourist information offices, a library, and bookshops. Nothing.
• So we spent a bit of time looking in pubs instead, ahaha.
• We were staying in the Coniston Hall camp site which was run by a woman remarkably like Tubbs from The League Of Gentlemen. We kept a sharp ear out for the cries of “We didn’t burn him!” but fortunately managed to avoid a gruesome death at the hands of locals.
• Possibly by hiding in the pub the whole time, ahaha.
• The beer’s pretty darn good in the area, too.
• Sellafield Visitors Centre is not only a very interesting and interactive day but is very objective about the costs as well as the benefits of nuclear power. Good on them, I say; at times it almost seemed like a place set up by the CND rather than BNFL.
• Andy refuses to pee in a bush in daylight, even if no-one is watching. I feel no such restriction.
• You can drink almost any amount of beer if you really put your mind to it.
• John Ruskin (the local Coniston luminary) is a pretty cool guy; his pencil drawings of Venetian stuff are particularly good. I had no idea he was so influential!
• Castlerigg is an interesting stone circle. St Julian had quite a bit to say about it in The Modern Antiquarian as well, although he’s not as inspired as Andy’s theory about the stones reflecting in shape the mountains around them. I personally have my doubts, as well as my doubts about Cope’s mysticism in general, but it’s a good theory of Andy’s and a good writeup of JC’s.
• The Lake District is very pretty.
• One day I shall return.