When you take a rural holiday in early February, you take risks. We lost. From the moment we arrived in Penrith it has been pouring with rain. It’s not just the normal, water-falling-from-the-sky variety. No, it’s the driving-soaks-you-to-the-skin-as-soon-as-you-step-outside variety. This explains a couple of things. It explains why Lorna and I had a romantic dinner in the Safeway supermarket just by the station yesterday. It also explains why we retired to the nearby pub afterwards.

My, what a drinking hole that was. We spent a few hours listening to the local youths listening to Nu Metal and desperately trying to chat up the only girl in the group. Once we got tired of that, we moved into the other bar where Lorna attracted the attention of a drunk old man who kept muttering about her “nice teeth”. After a while, he took to calling me a “lying northerner”.

“You don’t want to trust him. He’s lying. I can see it in his eyes,” he told Lorna, no doubt hoping to get her alone so he could remove her teeth and add them to the girlfriend he’s been building in his outhouse. Thankfully, three of the lads arrived before I had to fight for my life and the honour of Lorna’s teeth. We leapt in their car and made the slow journey up to the house.

Why slow? Remember that rain I talked about last night? It’s been pouring off the hills in rivers. Lake Ullswater, which sites right by the road, was doing its best to conquer it and launch an assault on the sheep fields above. It was doing a pretty damn good job, much to the consternation of the sheep and us in the car. Still, we made to the house, more-or-less dry and settled in quickly.

It’s a big old farmhouse, with a central living area and wings of bedrooms off to either side. It’s that rickety age of uneven floors, rough plaster and exposed beams, and is waterproof enough, as long as you don’t mid a bucket under the leak in the bathroom ceiling. Certainly enough to keep 11 people with enough booze to drown those sheep dry, anyway.

We all got up pretty late this morning. OK, we all got up this afternoon, and had a huge cooked breakfast. I really enjoyed it until Lorna and I settled down to wash up. I have never seen so much lard used to cook a meal in my life. Lorna washed the frying pans three times each. We discussed this with Nicki & Suzanne and decided to hide the lard before tomorrow morning.

We all decided to brave the weather and take a trip into Penrith proper. Overnight, the lake had risen high enough that is covered the road in several places. Between those and the places where the torrents of water falling off the hills were drenching the road, it was a slow, wet and slightly nerve-racking journey. Still, we made it and had a few good hours in Penrith, buying some odds and ends - including some waterproofs for me - and enjoying a drink in the pub.

On the way back, Steve suddenly had the bright idea of going on to Howtown, the next village along from the farmhouse where we’re staying. The water had receded a little in the time we’d been out, so this seemed like a good idea, right up until the moment his tyre burst. So, instead of finding out if we had a good local pub, we ended up shivering by the side of a tiny country lane while Steve and Lorna fixed the tyre.

Now I’m back in my room, warming up and looking forward to my dinner. Bliss.