Fun in Keswick

I am sitting in the front seat of someone else's car, babysitting two slumbering toddlers in the car park next to Booths supermarket in Keswick. Somehow, out of the 6 adults available, I was the one selected for this dubious honour.

I don't have my ipod, or even a phone. There is no reading material apart from the owner's manual in the glove compartment and a couple of nursery reports on the floor. From these I learn that on Monday 7 July Oscar ate half of his roast turkey dinner and Franklin filled 4 nappies but two of them were only wet.

The CDs in the door are by Adele, Olly Murs, and McFly.

After the rain last night and this morning the bit of mountain I might have seen through a gap between the buildings is shrouded in cloud.

After 10 minutes I am reminded of the experiment where subjects were left in an empty room with nothing to do and several resorted to giving themselves electric shocks to alleviate the boredom.

Decide I am better than that, and will "make my own entertainment" by observing the people using the pay-and-display machine. However we are in a remote corner of the car park and of the few people who use, it at least 80% are male. (So much for equality when it comes to paying for the car park, ladies!) And those females who do use it are wearing jeans or slacks. After the bare-leg fest that was Keswick market place in the sun yesterday, normal Lake District service has clearly been resumed.

There are now, simultaneously, two miniscule patches of blue sky visible through the cloud. Am I going to see some mountain?

Colin Fitzgerald comes to empty the bin beside the pay station. It's either Colin or someone who has borrowed Colin's high-viz jacket.

After about 20 minutes I start to wonder if there are jump leads in the boot, but then I hear a snuffle behind me. I turn around to find 2 pairs of just-awake eyes checking me out. Hooray, some people to play with!

But just then their mum arrives to relieve me. Rats!