How to annihilate a holiday destination

At the moment, vacations are like buses. Having not been away since October last year (to Rome), Sarah and I have been to St Ives for a week this September, and now Lake Windermere for a long weekend. We’re also planning a complicated trip to Europe at some point over the coming months that may or may not include a day or two in Germany (I would just love to see Wachter Der Schatten on the bookshelves somewhere, perhaps Munich or Frankfurt!).

The jaunt up to Cumbria was one of those last minute things. I’m understandably on edge at the moment and needed to escape the confines of Sheffield for somewhere quite different, so a long weekend was the most immediate thing that came to mind.
And it worked.
I wound down completely, forgot about the book for a couple of days and enjoyed the surrounds of one of the most beautiful stretches of water in England. We dined well, slept well, walked our socks off, and were rewarded with a bright weekend. I guess the most surreal part of the weekend was drinking in a local pub rammed with English rugby fans cheering on the French as they beat New Zealand. And only then did I discover England had done the improbable and beat Australia (once again, I might add, but I won’t dwell on that too much!).

It was an impromptu weekend, of surprise and relaxation. And yet still I couldn’t switch off the ole writing brain, and began formulating a short story or novelette (you know, I love that term – “novelette” – it’s kinda a cute and conjures visions of a teeney weeney novel as thick as Middlemarch but the size of a postage stamp).

The story in question has the working title “The End of the World at the Lakeheights Hotel”. It’s a black comedy about Lake Windermere and it’s surrounds being utterly obliterated by an unexplained invader – as seen through the eyes of a hapless couple who are running a hotel, which is really just a B&B (the antithesis to the fantastic hotel we stayed in over the weekend).
Picture Raymond Brigg’s When the Wind Blows crossed with War of the Worlds and Fawlty Towers, and you might come close...