Holiday-tinted glasses
I'm on holiday this week, in the Lake District. I come here a lot and it's what the word "holiday" evokes for me. This is what I imagine. I've been here most years of my life.
Even when it's grey and rainy in the Lake District that feels okay. It's a damp place. The stormy clouds work well as an epic backdrop. The smell of rain is the smell of the holiday.
I apologise for the large and unruly photograph of Rydal Water just before I got in it. I'll fix it when I get home.
It's spectacular but it's busy. I'm staying in a caravan park and have camped, rather than taking up accommodation locals could be using. I get the bus. I try to be a good tourist. It remains an ethical conundrum. Places rely on tourism but dislike tourists and I understand the contradiction.
Tourism is not natural to me - I haven't left the country in twelve years. My passport has expired. I know I should want to travel, that it is good for me as a person, expands the horizons, and so on and so forth. I have travelled and there are places I would still like to go. But at what cost? I'd be perfectly happy if I never got on another aeroplane for the rest of my life. Maybe just get the train to the continent. Even if I never left the country again I don't think I'd be too sad about it. The UK is an amazing place and I've travelled it from Lands End to John O'Groats with still so much left to see.
I miss my garden but my mum went to water things and reported the cats are taking all sorts of liberties in our absence.
So we've done a very choppy windy swim event, a much calmer and more relaxed swim, picnics, shopping, and a nice walk thus far. Going to go cycling, kayaking, to the observatory, to the Wordsworth museum at Dove Cottage.
Two of my friends were having a debate. One had just been on holiday to the town the other grew up in. The local insisted it was a shithole. The tourist insisted it was beautiful. After going round in several circles the wife of the tourist leaned in in and said, "What Wayne is saying is that he likes being on holiday." And don't we all just like being on holiday.
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