A little jaunt around Loughrigg Tarn - December 2016

It was the 4th of December 2016 and we were spending the weekend with my in-laws.  We'd pottered down to see Hayes Garden Centre in its glorious winter splendour, with decorations so sparkly I was in a bit of a blissed out state.  Until the huge christmas tree with singing elves assaulted my eardrums. It were a narthern tree though, which were good for a giggle. (On my part anyway, as a renegade southerner.)

We toyed with the idea of Loughrigg Tarn as a jaunt on the way home; and the map showed a 'permissive' path going around it. (Something else that makes me giggle: the assumption that the path goes "Oh, alright then, if you are in to that kind of thing").

We started out with Grandma with us, and got some amazing snaps as we approached the tarn.  The sun was beginning to set, and then Grandma decided to head for home, as she was worried it would turn pitch black within 10 minutes.  We decided to continue, as it's not a huge tarn, and we figured we had longer than 10 minutes in any case. 

We came to the 'permissive' part of the path, to discover it doesn't exist.  Or has ceased to be permissive.  We followed what we thought was the way down to the lake shore, and climbed over a fence/stile, to find ourselves in a field of sheep with no obvious path ahead.  So we soldiered on for a bit, sending boys scampering up rocks to see if they could see a way to the road - they couldn't - and, upon realising we were going to end up in someone's farmyard before long, decided to retrace our steps. 

We headed back through the field, over the fence (now obviously not a stile) and up towards the gate on to the road.  Except the gate had barbed wire on it and was padlocked shut.  In for a penny, in for a pound: the boys squeezed through a horizontal gap in the gate with ease due to their thin, goat-like tendencies.  John and I had to climb over, whilst trying to keep the barbed wire out of the way to those areas of the body one really doesn't want to come into contact with barbed wire.  Whilst this was going on, a car pulled up and asked if we were Ros's relatives.  Fortunately the people in the car know my mother in law, and had found her walking back to our car.  Goodness only knows what they thought of us! But still, they drove off to find her and take her home, which meant that upon arriving back at our car, we could just drive straight to our home again (phoning her on the way, to check that she did know the couple in question, and had not been kidnapped). All was well.

A view across the tarn which is probably not usually seen, given that is was near the fence-stile-not a stile that we shouldn't have climbed over.