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I'm sure everyone looking at this will have already watched the news on TV and seen the horrendous weather conditions Cumbria experienced last week. It's not very often we make the headlines all over the world, but over the last three or four days we were at the top of almost every news program you care to mention.

By some miracle, the only impact Thursday's downpour had on me was the frustrating hour and a half it took me to drive ten mile. Of course during that time I had no idea how bad things were elsewhere, and it was only when I turned the TV on that I realised the scale of things.

By the time Friday and Saturday came we were more or less cut off in west Cumbria. The local news was telling us that the road was closed heading south, the roads from Cockermouth to Keswick, and Cockermouth to Carlisle were closed, and the route to Ennerdale was also closed; to be honest though, I would have to have been stupid to try and drive anywhere in these conditions if I didn't need to.

Crossing the bridge over the A66. It was chucking it down, , , again.

The view across to the Whinlatter fells, Bassenthwaite Lake and Dodd.

Slightly higher up now with a wider view towards Bassenthwaite Lake.

And round towards Derwent Water.

A close up of the floods at Bassenthwaite Lake, with Barf on the skyline.

the fields about midway between Derwent Water and Bassenthwaite Lake.

The Crosthwaite area of Keswick and Portinscale.

Thankfully it had stopped raining, but I was now getting battered by the winds. Skiddaw may look nice and clear, but if I'm telling the truth, I'm glad I'm down here and not up there.

Looking back from Latrigg's summit.

The ground was absolutely sodden along here. It really was squelch, squelch, squelch all the way.

Blencathra taken from the railway path (behind me).

A very full looking River Greta taken from the old railway path I followed back to Keswick. This is normally such a busy place, but the two people walking towards me were the last ones I saw until I left the path just outside Keswick.

When I first saw this from a distance, I thought the bridge was closed so I was starting to think of an alternative route. Luckily for me I carried on until I was close enough to see what was really going on.

One of the old railway bridges found along the route.

Walking under the A66 road bridge.

Back in Keswick now.

With plenty of time to spare, I decided to have a walk down to the lake and sadly I found the place in a right mess. If we've learnt nothing else over the last week, the state of the place proves that when mother nature gets in a really bad mood there's nothing we can do except wait for things to settle down again and then begin the awful job of cleaning up.

The sign on the post says "No swimming of fishing from or around the landing stages" !!!

Compare this picture to the next one which I took about a month ago

Another one to compare.

Keswick Market Place, and although most of the shops were open, there was a noticeable lack of people about.

Along with many other bridges in Cumbria, Greta Bridge had been closed to pedestrians as well as traffic for safety reasons.

And the view off the bridge.

The obvious route for me back to get back to the car was a walk back through the town and through Fitz Park, which I found in this sorry looking condition.