OH BOY. Have I been living life in the fast lane recently? Life shows no signs of slowing down and I wrote about how I was feeling here. Luckily, I have a weekend away in Rome to look forward to this week, but not before a whistle stop tour down to London with work. A couple of weeks ago we headed to Darwin Escape’s own holiday resort in Keswick which gave me a couple of days to recharge my batteries in a different environment. But, I totally got the “Smonday feels” on the Sunday as I had a delightful wake up call of 4am on the Monday morning. So, to make the most of our weekend break to we took a nice, leisurely stroll in to Keswick town centre, complete with the lushest brunch you could imagine.
Pssst…. Isn’t Mr C dreamy?
No visit to a countryside town is complete without popping in to various local stores. No less was this antique, bric-a-brac store that was complete with first press vinyls and old trinkets for us to look amongst. We spent ages trying to find various old records of bands we love, such as Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Metallica and Jimi Hendrix – some of the old classics. We are both super-keen music enthusiasts so it was a dream heading in and having a nosey. They also sold really old glass bottles, jugs and vases and I’m kicking myself for not buying a couple on the way out.
Our next stop was brunch and your girl here loves nothing more than flat white complete with a delicious plate of food that could pass for lunch or breakfast. We stopped in to the most insta-worthy café called, Merienda. The décor was a bloggers dream (and pretty much sold itself to me before we even walked through the door) Old wooden school chairs, tables and benches. Succulents and cacti’s everywhere, even the foliage hanging from the ceiling brought the outside, in. Minus the rain of course!
The menu was a winner and we opted for a classic full English complete with poached eggs, rare breed bacon & sausages (nom), vine ripe tomatoes and button mushrooms. Oh and not forgetting some stodgy corn bread for good measure. Guzzled down with (the nicest!) hot flat white, both of us were in food heaven. I’m so glad we stumbled upon this place because it was dreamy. We took our time and just giggled and chatted for the best part of an hour, watching everyone pop by whilst we were cosy in our little corner. But with only two hours on the car, we had to head back and we decided to take a little drive around the lake.
The Lake District is famed for it’s beautiful scenery and it definitely worth a visit if you are ever in the UK or heading up North. If you are looking for a quieter, less tourist populated area, it’s always worth heading the twenty-some miles north away from Windermere to Keswick. It feels a little bit more rugged and remote in around Keswick’s waters. Almost like you are in the middle of nowhere or the very northern tips of Scotland. It’s breath-taking. Sadly, the weather wasn’t kind to us, so we drove all around the Lake taking various pit stops to take photos of the views and gorgeous landscapes that surrounded us. With no deadlines to get back we did it on our own terms and very leisurely (even if we did have to do a little bit of off-roading in our 4×4 to get round a Land Rover on a single track road!)
And that brings me to the title of the post. Living life slowly. Switching off for me has been so hard lately. It was nice to spend a dedicated weekend to being somewhere we both love, having next to nothing of phone signal and not having any real concrete plans or time schedules to stick to (other than being back for our 3pm spa session – heavenly!) and I think we forget that our bodies and minds need that for our own sanity. The alone time for us both was needed as I have been travelling around so much since New Year. I’ll be planning more weekends like this throughout the year, no doubt. It was the perfect staycation to live life in the slow lane.
Will you be heading on a similar holiday this year?
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