The flood gates open. No, panic not, we’re not being inundated by Derwentwater. When we first tried booking this out-of-character trip we were a little surprised to find that Christmas had availability but that New Year was full to the…

“After the Lord Mayor’s Show comes …” Christmas Day had been brilliant – well, relatively speaking for the UK at this time of year. Today looked like being quite the opposite. The morning at least remained dry, though very overcast,…

In a complete week forecast to be generally grey and wet with the odd smattering of wind, the weather gods smiled on Keswick’s Christmas Day; 25th December dawned dry and calm with some breaks in the clouds. Francine went out…

… otherwise known as Christmas Eve. Today was a bit of a repeat of yesterday; repeat, that is, except the wind had dropped and conditions were now calm but it was raining more frequently. Being calm, when it came the…

There can be something vaguely soothing about rain pattering on the roof of a caravan over night. UK winter nights being rather long, I had been awake and soothed for a couple of hours. The same is not true when…

We have  spent the last four Christmas periods in Spain. For the last two years we have spent the majority of the northern hemisphere winter in Spain, being there from 21st December until the middle of March. However, with mixed…