Kendal; Friday, 21 July, 2017

Another week and another conference had me staying over in Lancaster. The conference had been on the Thursday, but due to the timings it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to get back to London that evening so work had put me up for a second night in the Travelodge in Lancaster City Centre and I worked out of there for the morning.

During my lunch break I grabbed some food from the Tesco beneath the hotel and wheeled my luggage through the tail end of a heavy shower to Lancaster station where I hopped on the train one stop to Oxenholme and changed there onto the waiting train to Kendal. It was a short walk from the station to the hotel in Kendal and I made it before the end of my lunch break and with time spare before my next call at 2pm. Unfortunately, the hotel didn’t have a room ready for me (despite having checked in online the previous evening), so I had to find a quiet corner of the restaurant to make the call.

Shortly after I’d finished the call my room was ready so I was able to complete checkin and get into the room to drop my stuff off and finish off my days’ work.

Having shut the laptop down I looked out of the window to see that the clouds were starting to clear and the showers were just down to a light drizzle. By the time I left the hotel it had completely stopped so I was able to go for a wander without the need for an umbrella.

I had a wander through the town centre and down to the banks of the River Kent, before crossing over and heading up through the park on the opposite bank to the ruins of Kendal castle perched on the high ground overlooking the river.

It was a pretty steep climb up to the castle, but well worth it for the view both of the town and of the hills of the Lake District.

I had a wander around the castle ruins taking in both the ruins and the views before I felt a couple of spots of rain, so I decided it was probably a good time to head back down into town.

It was a good 15-minute walk back down into town, and the spots of rain were becoming much more frequent, but I managed to make it back into the centre and into a restaurant before the next shower passed through.

After dinner, I had another little bit of a wander round the town centre before heading back to the hotel and turning in