Well, today started as expected, rain outside the window and a delicious breakfast inside. The West View has one communal table in their breakfast room, which I find quite charming – something I haven’t seen before.

The hosts here (Heather and Craig) are very friendly and welcoming, they took over the business from Heather’s parents, who are currently visiting here too.

I met a couple over breakfast who were from Nottingham and had planned to hike up Skiddaw today but the wife wasn’t too sure. I told them about my plans to go to the Marmalade Festival and Dalemain and they recommended looking for marmalades made of fruit other than oranges.

I went back up to my room to get my raincoat and disaster had struck! Well, maybe not disaster, closer to a minor inconvenience, but the door wouldn’t open. Craig tried, Heather tried, Heather’s dad tried, but no.

A locksmith was called and everyone was very apologetic but I didn’t mind at all. I sat in the lounge and updated the blog and enjoyed the rainy view.

They had planned to call a friend of theirs, Kerry, a retired locksmith with several famous spaniels. Apparently during lockdown Kerry had suffered from depression, so he had bought his original spaniel, Max, and started a Facebook page where he shared videos of their walks around Keswick.

The page became extremely popular and the dogs became famous, being on tv and meeting William and Kate.

I did all this reading (and writing) while waiting for the locksmith, who did not end up being Kerry and his famous dogs (to be honest, he probably wouldn’t have brought them with him anyway), but the new locksmith, who was nice and had to change the entire lock mechanism and carve a bigger hole in the door. I left while work was underway!

I had a festival to get to! I donned my coat and headed to the bus stop, where everyone was waiting in an orderly queue in the rain.

And now I’m on the bus! With the broken down bus yesterday and the locked door today, I’m wondering if I should be superstitious and look out for inconvenience number three?