LAKES AGAIN

I really don’t seem to understand the secret of relaxation. Other people, it seems, can look forward to things, plan things and then actually find a way to enjoy them when they’re doing them. I, however, will book a couple of days away, mostly because there’s a sense that we really need to get away, and then contrive to find a way to return home feeling far worse than I did before I left, and, considering that I left on a Friday, at the end of the working week, and then spent the better part of a weekend in a place notorious for being “relaxing”, that takes some doing.

And it’s not as if I wasn’t looking forward to the break because I was, I really was, but somehow, somehow, I’ve got home feeling massively disappointed and exhausted, and not exhausted in a good “Oh, that was a lot of fun” kind of a way, but more the kind where you feel like you’ve been hit round the head with a wet sock full of sand and feel like you need a month to recover. But that’s never going to happen because Monday morning has already steamed over the horizon and is waiting for you to stagger through its merry portals.

Leaving work on Friday evening promised so much. The car was already loaded with the bags, and the cameras, and the thousand and one other little items guaranteed to ensure a successful weekend break. The weekend in question had been specifically chosen to leave just enough lightness in the evenings to guarantee that the journey wouldn’t be spent looking at the hypnotic reflections of cats eyes in the pitch darkness, and so make the drive far less stressful and tiring, but then the Friday evening traffic out of the city contrived to stretch the first ten minute sprint around the ring road into a crawl through purgatory and a jolly little jaunt turned into a three and a half hour marathon, with only the dubious delights of Radio 2’s “Drivetime” to keep the monotony of the pitch black roads at bay.

But, nevertheless, we arrived pretty much on schedule, and whilst it was disappointing to discover that one of the two local pubs had closed since we were last in the area, the other now offered a discount courtesy of the B&B we were booked into, and so we staggered along another pitch black road to buy a pie and a pint.

Very good it was too, except for the fact that I was growing weary and risked tipping face first into a plate of Steak and Ale pie instead of eating it, and so the only pint the weekend was likely to offer was rather squandered and unappreciated as it went about its business. At least between the pub and the accommodation there was a tiny window of opportunity of network coverage for me to make the necessary call home to my mother to let her know we hadn’t, as she always seems to expect whenever I drive anywhere, died horribly this time, and I was able to get another brief lecture about the problems with my home landline and why I should sort it out. The engineer is actually due to call, but I didn’t get the chance to mention this.

Back in the room, I wanted to sleep, but instead was drawn in to the delights of Friday night TV and then slept afterwards. In fact, for me, I slept surprisingly well, although the effect was rather ruined by waking up in the darkness and being unable to se what time it was. I was hoping for another few hours’ rest but when I discovered, by means of taking my watch into the bathroom and switching on the lights (and therefore waking myself up properly), that it was already 7.00am and breakfast would be being served in a mere hour and a bit, I wearily resigned myself to facing up to another tired day ahead of me.

That it was spent walking into town, and shopping, and drinking coffee in lovely little tea shops (because I’m perverse like that…), and digesting an enormous breakfast, is all well and good, but probably not what most people head to the Lake District for. Neither would they probably consider an afternoon pizza and movie deal high on their list of “stuff to do” in the great outdoors, but that’s what we did, although I did yawn copiously through the pizza and, as we drove back in the dark, again, I looked forward to a seriously good night’s sleep which, perversely, I did not get. Instead I spent most of the night wide awake and listening to my own worries and doubts as they echoed around inside my mind.

On Sunday, of course, we had to pack up the car and head home, stopping on the way to do some more shopping, and then heading towards Grange-Over-Sands which we successfully navigated our way to, after having managed to miss it by miles the last time we tried to find it.

It was shut.

No, that’s unfair, really (although much of it was), and I managed to say something stupid as we strolled along the rather fine prom tiddly-om-pom-pom, which did rather spoil the mood, although I did manage to eat an ice-cream in a vague effort to convince myself that I was actually on holiday, and we did have a lunch in a pleasant cafe alongside a family who couldn’t have been a more “typical scouse family” if they’d tried to film it and then call it a sitcom by Carla Lane.

All this bright late autumnal sunshine was fair enough, but we decided to head home and that’s where the glumps really set in. We staggered through the unpacking and the various other things you do when you arrive home after a weekend away and I eventually decided to try and get some much needed sleep and went to bed, only for me to wake up again at 11.30pm, just in time to spend another night watching the clock click through its number sequence, and listen to those various voices picking on me in my head again.

By the morning they’d persuaded me again that everything I did was worthless and all of the things that I thought I enjoyed about my online life, the Twittering, the FizzBooking and this ludicrous attempt at Bloggeration, were all utterly worthless, without merit and a colossal waste of time, and, not only that, they were probably ruining my life and distracting me from the various delights on offer during a weekend in the Lake District.

I’m sorry.

I’m tired.

Really, really tired… and somehow, I’ve still got to drag this weary and unrefreshed carcass through another Monday.

I think I need a holiday…