After a very large breakfast we went for a walk around the black lake, passing first through the lakeside mansions (now mostly holiday homes or hotels) and then over a small stone bridge past dairy farms. Then up the side of one of the low hills ringing the lake, where the air was heavy with scent, and the ground was green and yellow and white and pink and blue with wildflowers. There were bursts of purple along the hillside from rhododendrons growing wild, interspersed with gorse and the less showy blooms of feral fuchsia. Tall spurs of foxgloves lined the path and there were bees, of all kinds, everywhere.
A surprising number of cars passed us, one local stopped to ask who we were were, and then met us again on his way back from an errand. It rained for only a few minutes and we took shelter under a hawthorn.
At the top of the hill was a crossroads, where you could see the black flat surface of the lake, like gunmetal, on one side, and the arms of land reaching into hte sea on the other.
At the end of the walk, instead of returning to the hotel, we pressed on another few kilometres to another countryhouse hotel, one formerly owned by a 21 year old who received it from her father as a birthday gift. This hotel was less nice than our’s but served cream teas, which seemed the right sort of thing. It had flowered gardens spilling down to the shore of the lake, so we wandered around for a bit after our snack and then returned for a rest and dinner.