The Lake District in Cumbria in the northern part of England is still my most favourite place in England, with its quaint slate built houses and walls, valleys and hills galore with sheep merrily roaming around, I understand and agree with an American’s description of the Lake District as ‘quaint’. It all looks so pretty no matter what time of the year you visit.

Since I was a little boy I have visited ‘The Lakes’ and with the largest lake in England, Lake Windermere nestled within the beauty of this national park, I can feel how people like the poet, Williams Wordsworth and the children’s book writer, Beatrix Potter, fell in love and lived their lives here. The words must have been simply pouring from their imagination and onto pages with profound ease.

Nowadays, Bowness-on-Windermere is the commercial capital, the small town sat at the southern part of Lake Windermere, it is busy with tourists from all over the world, all year round, while Windermere a mile or so down the windy road is not quite as pretty but remains busy all the same.

We missed out Ambleside and my favourite village, Grasmere, on this trip due to the heavy traffic, which when backed up in the Lake District creates queues for hours and much frustration. These towns along with Hawkshead, Coniston and Keswick are connected with story-book narrow, windy road which snake their way from town to town with the odd tiny village thrown in here and there.