Brief Encounter in Bowness

As a postscript to Friday’s diary entry, we went out to Rastelli’s in Bowness (the finest Italian Restaurant in the country – it isn’t expensive, it’s just that the service is superb) and then went for a ‘last one’ at the Hole in the Wall. Who should be there but that esteemed raconteur, bon viveur and serial second-hand car buyer Richard Bennett, along with Steph and a group of Shropshire lads and their ladies. We had stumbled upon a reunion meeting of the group which visited Everest Base Camp a couple of years ago. It goes without saying that we stopped out longer, and had a little more to drink, than we had planned!

Anyway, thanks for the donation to the Rosemere Cancer Foundation, thanks Mike for the drink, and here’s a couple of photographs showing Mr Bennett and two of the participants (Mike is one, sorry but I’ve forgotten the other name!) which will give you a flavour of what goes on at Everest Base Camp.

Oh, and you may be wondering how this group of intrepid mountaineers were planning to spend the following day in the Lake District. A traverse of the Helvellyn group for instance, or an assault on Scafell Pikes? Er, no, they were going to take the ferry to Ambleside and go shopping!

Just as a further aside I was watching a programme on the film director David Lean the other night, and saw a great illustration of the wonderful range of vocabulary enjoyed by the English language. One of his films was Brief Encounter, and whilst mentioning the various countries where it was screened I noticed a Danish poster for the film, entitled ‘Det korte mode’ – Brief Encounter had become ‘The Short Meeting’. Lovely.