Windermere...

It’s not so bad getting old (and definitely better than the alternative, as Woody Allen used to say). I meet a lot of people on my travels, and first impressions count. So it’s gratifying to find that people are, on the whole, very friendly. With age I think I’ve reached a plateau. Men don’t find me a threat, so it’s handshakes all round, not raised fists. I can get away with saying a lot of things that might have got me into bother thirty years ago. Women don’t see me as a source of either pleasure or pain, and are happy to chat.

I drove from Cockermouth to Windermere this morning, through heavy rain all the way. There were ‘white horses’ on Thirlmere, and Bassenthwaite Lake looked gloomy; it’s definitely not sailing weather. With poor visibility, the hills disappeared into the mist, but there was still something special about the autumn colours. The weather’s supposed to improve about lunchtime, so I may get some pix. In the meantime I’m parked up, proof-reading…

I made a classic mistake this morning. I read, on the Guardian website, that a 16-year-old schoolboy, Daniel Stroud, is being held by police in connection with the stabbing of fellow pupil, Bailey Gwynne. At the top of the article was an unflattering photograph of a teenager, which I immediately assumed to be Daniel Stroud. “Yes”, I thought, “he looks like a bit of a bully”. Then I read the caption and realised it was the boy who died. How quickly we make baseless assumptions about people…