Read about our relaxing family holiday at Keswick Reach Lodge Retreat in The Lake District.
MultiGenerational Holidays
With families living further and further afield, multigenerational holidays are quite the thing right now. In our family’s case, for example, one of our daughter’s lives in Aberdeen. Now we live in Barry Island and it’s a fair old trek to say the least. Because it’s such a long drive or a hugely expensive plane journey, we obviously don’t go up as often as we’d like. Likewise it’s just as far for them to come down to see us. Our first grandson Dylan isn’t a fan of long car journeys and within the next few months, Baby Number 2 will be here to complicate things even further. Less room in their house for us to stay with them and more of a pain for them to travel to us.
With this in mind, we’re trying to make the effort to meet up halfway every so often. This year for the second year running, we met up in The Lake District. All our children (with the exception of one who is building up his new cleaning business and couldn’t afford the time) came and we had a ball.
Keswick Reach Lodge Retreat
After days of googling around, we found the Darwin Escapes website. Darwin Escapes offer lodge holidays all over The UK but it was their Keswick Reach Lodge Retreat which caught our eye. Almost halfway between the area of Wales most of our family live in and Aberdeen, Keswick Reach was in a perfect location and seemed to offer everything we wanted.
We booked three lodges between us. Close together but our own space if we wanted it. The lodges were all high-quality and some of them even had their own hot tubs. The Ammara Spa was a big draw and those of us who visited left relaxed and wanting to return. Keswick Reach holiday park has apparently been named as The Best in Britain for the past two years and it’s obvious why.
Horrendous Weather
We were there in what was definitely the worst weather, the country has seen for years. It rained, it rained and then it rained some more. Not only that but the wind was awful. Just walking from one lodge to another was enough to drench you through and through. Back at home the weather in Wales was even worse so we felt fortunate to be cocooned in our nice, warm holiday lodge. No real need to go far and surrounded by plenty of food, board games, family and books. Listening to the wind howling outside and watching the rain lashing down the windows of our lodge, somehow made everything seem super-cosy.
Snuggling up with a good book was a given. I finished one book and made my way through three quarters of another in our week. And when we weren’t cwtching or playing with our gorgeous grandson, we were catching up with the kids and their respective partners.
Copper Fells Bar & Brasserie
We ate together most of the time we were away. We had three lodges so tended to go over to the biggest one for meals. We all pitched in buying the food and likewise with the cooking. Cooked Breakfast for everyone was a snip after a couple of days. Various members of our group ate at the onsite Copper Fells Brasserie on different occasions. The Valentine’s Day Special menu was a must for Daughter 1 and hubby as we were on hand to babysit!
Before we arrived we booked a big family meal for the Saturday night. There were so many of us that we didn’t want to leave availability to chance. The Copper Fells restaurant really came up trumps for us. They even decorated the table up with balloons and banners as we’d mentioned a 30th birthday in passing. The staff were brilliant all evening. Friendly, chatty and always there when you needed them without all that awful hovering business.
The food was excellent and plentiful would be a massive understatement! Mr 50 Plus and I both ordered the Spiced Apple & Caramel Crumble with Salted Caramel Ice-Cream. If we’d known how huge the portions were going to be, we’d have ordered one between us. It was simply delicious but after three wonderful courses, neither of us could finish.
Everybody’s food, without exception, was top-notch. Piping hot, tasty and cooked to perfection! What more can you want?
All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable week which we will most definitely be repeating sometime soon. Next time we may well go on our own – who knows.
