CEILIDH!!!

Saturday 10th October

Kendal today. I’ve been to Kendal before with Filipa, but amazingly we managed to miss the Chocolate House!! I think my chocolate radar must have been malfunctioning that day or something. Anyway . . .

I didn’t realise how close we were to Kendal. I think it only took half an hour or so to get there. Sue and Kim drove us in the minibuses and I was most intrigued when they mentioned the aforementioned Chocolate House. I wonder why . . . ? So I ended up hanging out with Brooke (Australian roommate), Julie (American) and Lisete who is Estonian. First port of call was tourist information where we found out how to get to the castle and more importantly the chocolate shop. Before we visited there though, I introduced everyone to a wonderful little place called Thornton’s. Can you believe they’d never been in one before? I can’t tell you how hard it is educating everyone! J

We trekked up to the castle – emphasis on ‘trekked’. Clearly I haven’t walked up Kiln Lane in a while because that hill was hard work!! The walk along the river was nice, although not a patch on Hebden Bridge! The castle was great fun though. We wandered around the hill it’s built on for a while (managed to get lost) and the views were great even though the day was a bit overcast. The castle was the family home of Catherine Parr, Henry VIII’s last wife. It’s a bit of a ruin, mostly grass inside, but the walls and parts of the buildings have been preserved so you still get a feel for the place. It was great fun clambering along the walls and in and out of the buildings.

We climbed back down – which was soooooooo much easier than going up – and headed to a church and a museum but decided we didn’t fancy paying to go in the latter and since time wasn’t as much on our side as we’d like, we just headed for the chocolate shop. I think it’s one of the oldest chocolate houses in Britain and the girls were all wearing period clothes. We went and sat up in the chocolate loft which was very cosy – actually, the whole place was! – where there were wall hangings showing the whole chocolate making process, from planting to harvesting etc. They had sooooo many different flavours of hot chocolate and just as many different chocolate cakes. I think I had a King’s Ransom and a King’s Delight because they couldn’t make me a Dungeon. They were all named like that, after 17th century characters. I remember Brooke had a Scurvy Knave just because of the name! It was basically an orange flavour hot chocolate. The Dungeon that I wanted was a dark hot chocolate with dark chocolate sprinkled on top but I had to settle for a rich hot chocolate with marshmallows – the King’s Delight. The King’s ransom was a triple chocolate cake: two layers of sponge cake with chocolate mousse in between made up half the cake, then the top half was chocolate mousse again and the whole thing was covered in dark chocolate chips. The others had the hot chocolate fudge cake which I was very tempted to try, but I didn’t want to be too much of a piggy-wig. It took a few mouthfuls to get used to real chocolate, but it was REALLY good once I was used to it. Total chocolate hit.

After we’d eaten – must get the before and after photos off Brooke – we went down below the café (top floor – chocolate loft; ground floor – café; basement – chocolate shop) and had a look at all the goodies that for sale. I didn’t know Guerlain did dipping chocolate! The chocolate wellies – actually wellies with pictures of chocolates on, not the other kind – were very tempting but the whole place felt a little too expensive for comfort. It was all really good quality stuff though and probably would have been worth it. But I was happy enough getting fig biscuits and rich tea biscuits from Home & Bargain.

Still can’t believe we missed that first time around!!

The evening’s entertainment . . .

CEILIDH!!!!

For those of you who don’t know, the promise of a Ceilidh was the reason why I went to Capernwray in the first place. My mum was flipping through the holiday brochure and she sounded very keen on a few of them. Then I was flipping through, came to the 18-30’s section, saw Ceilidh on the timetable and decided I’d go. Then I looked at the rest of it and it sounded good as well. I’ve already been to one Ceilidh because I did that holiday again this year, but they put one on for the students as well! WAHOOOO!!!!

Unlike on the holiday, hardly anyone got dressed up, but I did for the fun of it. It didn’t go on quite as long because they’re a bit stricter about lock up etc. But we still started with the Virginia Reel, did the Gay Gordon’s for far too long! We danced the Macarena as usual and the Cha Cha slide. Then we did my personal favourite, Strip the Willow, which I was so chuffed about. It was great fun doing it with so many people – kept running into everyone in the Gay Gordon’s and the lines for Strip the Willow were so long! Dougie ended it after that with the Virginia Reel again and Auld Lang Syne. I think he and I were the only ones who knew to run into the middle and out again at the end, but it was a lot of fun. Then there was a bit of random dancing for the unofficial ending.

Oh, it was a great evening! Hopefully we’ll get another one although Dougie doesn’t think it’ll be this term. Still, there’s another two coming . . .