7 Reasons

Tag: visitor

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Visit The Lake District

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Visit The Lake District

    A holiday to the Lake District may not necessarily sound like a barrel of laughs but it is actually a great place to visit. Here’s why:

    7 Reasons To Visit The Lake District

    1.  There Are Great Museums And Indoor Attractions. There are many fantastic museums to visit in the Lake District, so if the weather turns bad you won’t be left twiddling your thumbs. If the thought of visiting The Cumberland Pencil Museum, home of the world’s longest colour pencil, makes you feel like sticking pencils in your eyes then The Lakes Aquarium at Windermere may be more your thing. Many of the museums are a great place to learn about local culture like the Maritime Museum or learn about things so truly associated with the Lake District like Beatrix Potter and Wordsworth.

    2.  Beat The Fat. The Lake District is a fantastic place to get out in the great outdoors. Instead of coming home from holiday carrying extra pounds, a trip to the Lake District is a chance to come home feeling fresh and looking lighter. Even a man’s best friend will benefit from a holiday in the countryside. After all, who would want to be stuck in a kennels all week? Staying in a pet friendly holiday cottage means you can bring your four legged friends along too.

    3.  It’s Not Far From Anywhere In The UK. The UK is just the right size meaning that you can travel from anywhere in the UK and arrive in the Lake’s in just a few hours. Stick on the sat nav and you will be there in no time. Once you arrive in the Lakes there are so many options of places to stay, from Keswick to Kendal and Ambleside to Windermere. So whatever you fancy there is sure to be a Lake District cottage for you.

    4.  Support The Local Economy. We all know the UK economy is going through a pretty rough time. So come on, be patriotic and spend your hard earned cash here in the UK. The Lake District economy is estimated to be worth somewhere in the region of £6.5 million a year and tourism in the Lake’s is responsible for keeping over 20,000 people in full time jobs, not to mention all the people employed part-time and seasonally. Come on, let’s look after the UK!

    5.  Stay Close To Home Comforts. What could be better than a holiday without all the annoyances: screaming kids at the airport, being kicked in the back of your seat on a long flight then having to contend with a different language and strange food? Keep it simple, just get in the car and off you go! Unfortunately, if the screaming kids are yours then you only have yourself to blame!

    6.  Experience Local Accents. The local Cumbrian accent can be quite hard to understand but local accents are part of what makes the UK great! Sounding somewhere between Lancashire and Geordie, the Cumbrian accent can be very strong. Phrases like ‘garn yam with our lass’ to most of us means ‘I’m going home with my wife’. And when you hear someone counting, you might hear ‘yan, tan, tetherer, methera’. You might need a guide book to understand the locals after all!

    7.  Country Pubs Are Great! What could be better then ending the day in a quaint country pub with a pint and a home cooked meal? A pub with oak beams and open log fire is a great place to catch up with family and friends. If you like beer (and let’s face it, who doesn’t?) a trip to one of the Lake Districts local breweries could be right up your street. And, naturally, no trip to a brewery would be complete without sampling the produce!

  • 7 Reasons That I’ve Been Baffled By A Doormat

    7 Reasons That I’ve Been Baffled By A Doormat

    Okay, I’ve been really confused.  I’ve had a tricky problem that’s been plaguing me for the past two days that I think I’ve finally solved but it’s been quite a journey.  It all started with a new arrival*.  A doormat.  I bought it to go inside the front door in the 3’ x 3’ space that, if I were grand, I’d refer to as my entrance hall or vestibule.  As it is, I’ve really never referred to that space before, I just know it as the-area-behind-the-front-door or occasionally the-area-in-front-of-the-world.  Anyway, I digress.  Below these words and above some more is a picture of the doormat.  Here are seven reasons that it’s been baffling me.

     

    1.  Perspective.  Yesterday morning, I pulled the mat from its bag and strode to the front door.  I had blithely supposed that I would be able to place the doormat inside the door and walk away to do something else.  Something important.  Something interesting.  But as I went to place the mat on the floor I felt troubled.  The problem was that the mat has a picture on it.  That means that it’s no mere utilitarian home accessory.  It’s also art.  Not high-art, admittedly.  It’s not Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or Klimpt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, which is fortunate as they probably wouldn’t fare well hanging on the floor in my hallway, and I would probably soon tire of the tourists.  But it’s still art.  And art’s there to be contemplated and enjoyed, to enhance an environment and provide stimulation for those that inhabit the same space.  Essentially, in this case, I realised that when I looked at the owls, I wanted them not to be upside down.

    2.  But That Would Be Unwelcoming.  Surely the doormat should face outward.  To welcome guests.  To make a nice first impression.  What would we be saying by having the mat face inward?  That we’re selfish people that want the owls the right way up for ourselves and care not a whit for the feelings of others?  That would make us appear distinctly unwelcoming.  You can’t greet people with upside down owls.  It’s a question of doormat etiquette.  Doormatiquette.

    3.  But!  Does an outward facing mat welcome guests though?  Because when the guests come into the house – and they sometimes do, we’re sociable people that don’t bite – the owls would be upside down.  So then everybody would be looking at the owls the wrong way up.  Both guests and residents.  No one would win.

    4.  Furthermore!  Having an outward facing mat would send another message.  An unwelcoming message.  And that message is Stop!  Come no further.  Being in the house is an anti climax.  Beyond this point, the owls are upside down.  If you stay outside it’s better.  These people have put this thing here to make sure you stand on their doorstep and come no further.  I was beginning to realise that placing a doormat was more complicated than I thought it was going to be.

    5.  A Compromise?  Okay, so there was no way I could have the doormat facing inward or outward.  But could I compromise?  Turning the doormat sideways would seem to be a fair thing to do, but wait?!  A sideways doormat!  That would be weird.  If someone opened a front door to you and their doormat was sideways you’d think they were barmy.  You’d assume that they were a gibbering harebrain that spent their nights pointing at the moon and their days pointing at the space the moon had been the previous night, pausing only to laugh hysterically at bicycles.  Have you ever been in the house of anyone with a sideways doormat?  No.  Of course not.  People that have been in the houses of people with sideways doormats are probably still there tied down in the cellar or imprisoned in the shed, being forced to eat balloons and comb a jelly or some equally bizarre and hideous fate.  The sideways doormat compromise was out.

    6.  Brainstorming.  By this point, I realised I needed help**.  I decided to ask Twitter.  Carrying the doormat over to the computer, I tweeted my dilemma.  With help from @kittyQ, @davidofyork, @kateypotatey, @jonesyinc1 and @amazingzeesh (all lovely tweeters) I brainstormed the problem.  It was difficult and there was no real consensus.  The nearest we got to a solution was @kateypotatey’s idea of hanging the doormat on the wall and putting it down facing outward only when anyone knocked on the door.  But that raised a further problem.  What would we do when the guests came in?  Wait for them to cross the threshold and then hang the doormat up on the wall?  That would make us look odd.  Not sideways-doormat-odd, but still a teensy bit weird.  And if we didn’t hang it back on the wall we’d all be looking at upside down owls again.  Unless I turned the mat to face inward after they came in but that would appear strange too.  And what if more guests arrived while existing guests were there?   What if we had a party?  Should my wife be responsible for making drinks and handing out nibbles while I take charge of rotating the doormat and greeting people?  That doesn’t sound like much of a party to me.  Or a picnic.  The capacity for it all to go horribly wrong would be endless.  I felt dizzy just thinking about it.  I decided to sleep on it.

    7.  And Sleep Helped.  This morning, when I woke I had an idea.  I walked downstairs and turned the doormat upside down.  The doormat would be ostensibly plain and no one would get to see the owls, but I would be able to peek at them whenever I liked.  We’d have secret owls.  But that felt ungenerous and it bothered me for most of the day.  This evening, however, I did solve the problem.  What I need to do is position the mat picture side up, facing outwards, and to convince myself and everyone that comes into the house that it’s a picture of three owls standing on their heads.  I also need to make them forget that I’ve convinced them of that when they leave.  What I need is a live-in hypnotist.  Anyone know one?

    *Cue angry mob.

    **And I sense that many people might agree with me.