Unfortunately, we don't have mountains down in the South, so I had to go North to find them.
Which is a crying shame because the scenery was beautiful and the roads made an excellent rally track and you can get some real good drift on them were safe and were travelled on with the utmost care, taking particular notice of the speed limits in place on such precarious passages.
As for what we actually did, me and my brother:
Climbed the Wrong Mountain:
We were aiming to scale Scaffal Pike, which is the tallest mountain in England, but it was surrounded by other mountains that were slightly shorter and we couldn't tell until we got to the top.
Blundered Into A Castle:
We were going for a stroll along Lake Windermere, which is the largest lake in the Lake District, and as we were about halfway round and about to turn back, I noticed a sign that said "Wrycastle 1 1/2 miles away".
"1 and a half miles away, that's not far"
Thought I, and it's not.
Except this was straight after climbing the mountain, so my feet were covered in blisters and it was in the middle of a rainstorm.
Since I am biologically engineered for Misery and Moors, I had a great time just calmly ambling there in the warm summer rain.
My brother….less so.
Especially since he forgot his coat.
Suffice to say, he was very salty on the three-hour walk back to the car.
On the brightside, it was a rather nice little castle.
Visited a Cheese Factory:
My brother demanded that we did less outdoor stuff on our outdoor themed holiday, so we visited the factory that makes Wensleydale cheese and my brother decided to buy some to try.
Unfortunately, against my sage advice, he decided that he would wait until he got back home, after a day-long car drive, in the Summer until he ate it.
So, hopefully it's still cheese and hasn't devolved back into yoghurt, but I'm sure we'll find out eventually.
Sat in A Car Jam for Over Two Hours:
Who the hell shuts down an entire four lane motorway between two of the most populous cities in the North and funnels the entire load of traffic through a one-lane slipway on a Saturday?
Highways England, that's who.
"Improving your journey"
Yeah, like fuck you are.
To be honest, I'm very bitter about the M6 in general, as it's almost a hundred miles of variable speed motorway with a speed camera literally every 100 yards.
What's a variable speed motorway?
It's a motorway where the speed limit can go from 60 to 40 to 70 and back to 40 again within the space of half a mile for no reason whatsoever. It's literally just someone whacking switches and making everyone's lives as tedious and horrible as their's is.
(sighs)
If only all our motorways could be like the M43.
Gorgeous scenery, as it was through the rolling hillside of Oxfordshire.
An actual honest-to-god hard shoulder unlike those deathtraps known as Smart Motorways where there is no safe lane, so if you breakdown you are almost guaranteed to be hit and killed.
And, best of all, no speed cameras. Which meant everyone was driving at the speed they felt comfortable with, there was no congestion as there was nothing to break the flow of traffic and it was much safer, as everyone was concentrating on their driving instead of spending half the time glued to their speedo.