Event 20: The adventures of Insubordinate Bow, Insufferable Moo, Most-Vexed-Cox and I

7 days of much laughter, food and sleep on the edge of lake Windermere. A ho (we ate the 'liday' half of the cheesecake first) I don't think any of us will forget. We spent many a happy hour trudging around Bowness in the rain, far too long trying to choose from 36 flavours of icecream, rewatched the final 10 minutes of each episode of pride and prejudice because the dvd player insisted on it, missed the train to Kendal whilst standing on the platform watching it go, found a pub called Churchill's Tavern and nurtured an unhealthy obsession for oatcakes. Nairns are the best, although I think Insubordinate Bow would probably disagree. Insufferable Moo sarcastically cooked sausages by glaring at them until they gave in, made the tastiest chocolate brownie ever, dyed the paella yellow with food colouring, spent far too long wondering what Nadal smells like and blew up the kettle. Most-Vexed-Cox washed up, tidied up, washed up some more, cleaned and kept us organised. I perfected my technique for cutting potatoes into wedges and made sure we had sufficient intake of icecream in order for it to be a holiday. Insubordinate Bow learned that Ben and Jerries icecream is very hard to serve straight from the freezer, prevented us from getting lost with her inbuilt compass and was chief quote collector.

Insufferable Moo arrived first after an overnight trip from Belgium during which she heard the life stories of just about everyone she met. Without knowing it, she took a bus to Bowness and then walked back to Windermere to visit every coffee shop before settling in the Booths tea shop, to be joined after several hours by me. My journey wasn't half as exciting as Insufferable Moo's, although I did have a good discussion with a Liverpudlian guy about how appalling the lack of luggage space on trains is. Insubordinate Bow arrived shortly after, having used just about every form of transport, and we bought cakes from the bakery for tea as our last chance to enjoy nut infested food. Most-Vexed-Cox arrived Sunday afternoon, shortly after Insufferable Moo dragged herself out of bed after a impressive but well deserved lie-in.

The house was very nice, with good views of the lake and sofas. We were even lucky enough to have a hi-fi with one working speaker. However, one drawer handle in the twin bedroom was loose and I went up one day to find it missing. Whilst questioning Insubordinate Bow on the location of the missing drawer handle I asked if she had perhaps removed it for safety reasons, only to have the large sharp nail still in the drawer promptly pointed out to me.

Insubordinate Bow, Most-Vexed-Cox and Insufferable Moo got up very early the following morning to climb a mountain, but didn't in the end because the weather forcast said rain. Predictably we then had the only half hour of sunshine and break in the constant drizzle of the entire week. Insufferable Moo spent it sunbathing on some very muddy grass in Windermere whilst Insubordinate Bow taught Most-Vexed-Cox and I how to throw a rugby ball. The mountain was re-schedueled for Thursday, when they got thoroughly mistyfied. On their return Most-Vexed-Cox was slightly comforted by concluding that tics probably can't do flying kamikaze leaps.

The trip to Kendal was good, especially the chocolate bit. We were all impressed by the immense selection of hot chocolates on offer and ate two of the largest waffles I've ever seen, despite it not being long since breakfast. We bought some chocolates as we feared the supply of Belgium chocolates brought by Insufferable Moo might be running low and some spanish chorizo for the paella (in a delicatessen, not the chocolate shop). Insubordinate Bow and Most-Vexed-Cox ran up a hill carrying lots of shopping from morrisons whilst I walked round in circles following the not-so-helpful signs to the toilets.

In an unthinking moment I agreed to go rowing on lake windermere, only because it was preferable to kayaking. Insufferable Moo managed to charm the boat-man into giving us a discount and he bailed the rain water out of the boat before setting us on our way. We rowed most of the way as stroke, bow, cox and spare cox, although we all rowed together for the final leg of the journey, zig zagging back into Bowness Bay. Even I had a go at rowing as an irregular stroke, when the rain stopped enough for me to come out from underneath my umbrella. Every so often there was a cry of BBB (bloody big boat) or LGC (large grey cloud) as we rowed our way around an island in the middle of the lake, attempting to avoid the buoys. We stopped part way round for lunch and amused ourselves greatly by passing food back and forth with directions such as "oatcakes to bow". We also discovered that it is rather tricky to catch grapes in your mouth without unstabilising the boat. Interested in charting our progress I took an unfortunate pause for breath after saying "Is that land...?" to which Most-Vexed-Cox helpfully replied, "I think what she meant was 'is that land on the other side of the river, or an island?'"

One evening we treated ourselves to a night off from the adventures of Miss Bennet and Mr Darcy and ventured out to the tiniest cinema to watch Miss Potter. However, this did mean that we had two episodes to eat the following evening whilst watching our chocolate brownie.

On our final evening we had a meal out, because Most-Vexed-Cox had just cleaned the kitchen and it would have been very rude to make it messy again (although Insubordinate Bow didn't quite get this subtle point and later poured milk all over the hob in the process of making hot chocolate). Eating out proved to be rather more popular than we anticipated, and it took us quite a while to find a restaurant with a table for four that could confidently cater for Most-Vexed-Cox without killing her. In the end we had a very nice meal and were delighted to find cartmel sticky toffee pudding on the menu, as well as crumble and custard (and no week is complete without custard). With the cleaning done, there was only one thing left to do before we all departed... how could I leave without first seeing the wedding!

Insubordinate Bow left at some ridiculous time in the middle of the night after only two hours sleep. Needless to say, I did not get up to say goodbye. But she did leave us a little note:
"My dear Ho Buddies,
Thank you for a fun week. It's been good to see you all :) Take a trip to the top of Biskey Howe if you have time. I send my compliments to all your mothers and hope that your journeys are not too vexing. I must make haste!
Love Insubordinate Bow xo"
I fear the nightly episodes of pride and predjudice may have got to her slightly... Most-Vexed-Cox and I got the train at the more sensible time of 11.37. We left Insufferable Moo to sample any coffee shops she had inadvertently missed a week previously and then wind her way to an oil rig in Azkaban with just her paella pan for company.