Lakes II: Brougham Castle

Back to the beginning: it is not so much a desire to begin at the beginning to offer a narrative of our trip to the lakes as to comment on how nice and friendly the AA guy was...

On the way to the Lake district, we stopped at Brougham Castle. (Photo to the left is Thomas' work.) It was lovely, which was really good, because we ended up spending the better part of a day there. Lewis made the fateful error of remarking that he thought we were making excellent time. 'Better than I expected' he said. So we stopped at the castle in high spirits, ready to begin our adventure.

And then Anna needed a change of clothes. (I won't give details, but anyone who has potty-trained will know the frustration of 'I don't have to go' being followed by certain evidence that the child did, in fact, need to go. But never mind) Suitably distracted, I returned to the car, and brought the clothes leaving my other bag (with sunglasses in it) behind. Big mistake--I ended up having to go back yet again for the sunglasses. Drat! Thomas came along, and as we were heading out the gate, I caught my hand, pinching it so that I thought, 'oooo, I'll have a bloodblister there'--except that I hit it slightly too hard for that, and just got the blood. Fortunately, I recalled, the first aid stuff was all in the car. I congratulated myself on being so well-prepared and continued on. We got to the car, retrieved my sunglasses, and I looked up to see...no Thomas. I called to him, and finally spotted him in the distance. Apparently he got bored and headed back to the castle. I fumed silently, at the same time being a tiny bit pleased that he had achieved some measure of independence. He got back to Lewis safely, and I was free to treat my little wound in peace, which I did. Then I closed the back hatch of the car and reached for the key to lock the door. But the door was already locked. And the key was inside.

Ooops. I could SEE the key from where I stood, but that wasn't much help, except that it catapulted me instantly to the zen state: you know, when the last possible thing has gone wrong and you realize there's no point in worrying about it any more. I went back and called AA on my cell phone. (Lewis' was in the car.)

It took about 45 minutes longer than they said it would, but eventually a very nice man with a van full of tools arrived to help. Fortunately, he was able to get the door opened, and I retrieved the key. 'You know', he said to Lewis conspiratorially, 'it's usually women who lock the keys in the car. But it's usually men who put the wrong fuel in the tank.' (That is, they put unleaded into a car that ought to have diesel, usually.)

Knowing both how expensive the latter mistake is, and that Lewis had once put almost a liter of unleaded into a tank that should have had diesel, I felt suddenly better. And, anyway, we really did enjoy the castle.