Five Things...

...I learned during my 157 hours of gleeful debauchery in Coniston.

1. I am now officially the man in Team Goat whose job it is to deal with stray dogs. Naturally, this position is something that bothers me not at all.

2. It's true what they say about academics. Just because a man has a PhD, it doesn't follow that he can catch a rabbit. Especially when all he's using is an overturned bin tied to a bright orange line of wire. It was also baited with radishes, which I might also have a problem with, but since the bin itself seemed to frighten off all the local lagomorphs, I guess it doesn't really matter.

3. Possibly the only way to improve upon a cream tea is to replace said tea with beer. Scones, butter, jam, clotted cream and a pint of bitter is an experience not to be missed, though in truth is possibly also an experience not to be repeated more than once a year if you value your heart valves.

4. Grizedale visitor centre is guarded by one of the best sculptures I've ever seen:

From where I was standing it looked like it didn't have a head, which serves me right for not walking over there to take a closer look. The surrounding forest is teeming with stuff like this, from fairly standard things like steel owls and wood foxes, through to what looked like a lion-fish carved from rock, and a terrifying giant metal fly that I couldn't even look at. Shudder.

5. Barley wine. It's delicious. It's nutritious. It's almost invariably fatal. It doesn't so much go to your head as break into your skull and wreck up the place. Even I, unrepentant follower of Bacchus that I am, dared have more than one pint every couple of days, which should give you some idea of what we're dealing with here. I'd drink battery acid if you mixed it with midori and stuck a cocktail umbrella in it.

Special bonus learning: my friends are awesome.