All Seasons is a mediocre establishment, clean, but with a quirky hostess. I never expect much from a late booking, and can honestly inform you that All Seasons did not fail to meet expectations.

Upon arrival we were greeted politely enough, though there was an edge to the woman’s manner, I had the feeling she wanted to tell me something, and that this something was not going to enhance our ‘guest comfort experience’. She showed us up to the room, but when the key was in the lock paused, turned, lowered her head and raised her eyes before intoning confidentially:

“I’m afraid there was a bit of an accident in your room last night.”

Did she have a pet cat, I thought? Perhaps an incontinent aunt? Or was this ‘accident’ altogether more sinister in nature?

“There was an Indian couple, and they had a fire in the room.”

Images of smoking headdresses presented themselves to me, only to be replaced by the more probable image of charred saris.

“A large fire?” I enquired.

“No, they were trying to cook something on a little stove, and it burnt the carpet a bit. I hope you don’t mind.”

And sure enough the burn on the carpet was not too bad, which is more than could be said for the rest of the room.

Should you be of a cat-swinging disposition, you’re going to be sorely disappointed here. One side of the bed was crammed so close to the wall it only left room for one person to shimmy crab-like along its edge. The foot of the bed was not crammed up against a wall, it was crammed up against a chest of drawers. This necessitated yet more crustaceal creeping, except when we actually wanted to get something from said drawers, then there was no shimmying or creeping or movement of any kind – it was more a case of ‘road closed’. And should your better half accidently forget to close one of these egress denying drawers, especially one of the lower ones – then may the good Lord have mercy upon your shins!

The other side of the bed was severely inconvenienced by the bathroom door, though this was nothing compared to the inconvenience of slowly shuffling between the furniture only to have the bathroom door unexpectedly open in my face as I approached the ‘critical corner’of the bed.

We soon developed a system of rapping on the bathroom door if we either wanted to pass it from the outside or open it from the inside – this avoided any further painful eventualities. We also soon learnt to carefully choreograph our progress about the room so that two people were able to move around in it, I won’t say freely, but at least painlessly. I swear we developed a new dance routine in that place.

In all, the room contained only two square yards of open space, one to allow the door to open, the other being the shower. The space behind the door just about allowed me to continue the press-ups regime I had thrown myself into several months previously with middle-aged zeal, while the shower enabled me to turn on a tap and enjoy a sensation not unlike being dripped on by a wet leaf – water pressure is a serious problem here. No matter what the season, All Seasons doesn’t seem to have enough water, a predicament not without irony considering this is Windermere.

So we decided to hit the town. While leaving we heard raised voices coming from the private quarters. We hoped this wouldn’t continue into the night, and thankfully it didn’t. We dined at a little Chinese restaurant just round the corner called The Golden Mountain, I can highly recommend it to you.

Upon going down to breakfast next day my hostess seemed to have something more to say to me.

“It’s Lieutenant Farquhar, isn’t it? I thought I recongised you.”

Her expectant face showed that she was not anticipating a negative response, but I’m afraid it was unavoidable.

“Really? I could have sworn it was you.”

“It is me, but I’m not Lieutenant Farquhar.” I tried to politely explain.

We left it at that. Perplexing - though the remote possibility did occur to me that my press ups regime may finally have started to broaden out my shoulders a bit!

The breakfast room claimed kin with the bedroom – scrupulously clean but cramped. We were seated in the bay window - well actually, no - ‘wedged’ in the bay window is closer to the mark. Mrs Spoorn is by no means a large person, but after limbo dancing my legs under the table to sit opposite her, I realised that she was flattened against the wall. I edged back, she edged forward, we eventually arrived at a compromise of discomfort, both of us having a table in the ribs, but with an equilibrium of pressure.

Then there was the butter-knife incident: I simply wanted one, it’s as plain as that, but had little chance of getting one. When I asked, I was given very short shrift. Instead of fetching another knife from the kitchen (which would have taken all of, gosh, about ten seconds, I’d say) the woman took my breakfast knife from the table, then holding it aloft declared: “We use this one.” Well thanks very much, but I prefer the butter on my toast to be runny-egg-yolk free. Perhaps she was pressed for time because she couldn’t wait to dash upstairs and argue with her husband again, I’ve no idea. I would have got up and fetched one myself had I not been pinned between wall and table. I’ll bet Lieutenant Farquhar doesn’t have to put up with this kind of palaver in his mess rooms...
The breakfast itself was actually quite good, but what a shame the service couldn’t reach the same standard.

If you arrive by train All Seasons is well situated, being only a stone’s throw from the station. The tourist information centre is even closer. There are also many winning shops, bars and restaurants of every cuisine in the immediate area. But should you come to Windermere for the lake (as most people do) it is a bit of a trek down the road from here.

If you must stay at All Seasons let me give you some friendly advice: first practise your limbo dancing technique, and whatever you do – don’t forget to bring your own butter-knife.