I am to travel planning what Basil Fawlty is to hotel management!

My intention this weekend was to spend some quality time with my sister, her daughter, my mom and my children before my niece goes home this week.  And because it was my idea it was left to me to arrange it.  First BIG mistake!

I love the Lake District and knowing that it was mom’s preferred choice and my sister had never been there, thought hey we’ll go there.

Now, it was last minute booking granted, but my first insight into how the weekend was going to pan out should have been the fact that I had difficulty booking some accommodation for us.

Trying to find somewhere that would take 4 adults, three children and a dog was like trying to find the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  It was an uphill battle!

My problem was - either the hotels wouldn’t accept dogs or they wouldn’t accept children depending on their age.  Or as in the most popular case they couldn’t accommodate two adults and three children in one room.

I had my work cut out.

I eventually found somewhere that had pet friendly rooms and a family room to sleep 5 of us.  Result. Even if it was not close to our favourite places of Windermere or Hawkshead and was a little bit more expensive than other places I had seen, we had somewhere to stay . . . .