Who knew? It’s Cartmel in Cumbria, which just happened to be the closest village to our cottage in the Lake District. Funny how these things happen, hey? And the village shop is where it all happened, and still happens today - and yes, we did stop in and make a purchase.

And the sticky toffee pudding was good. Since we’ve been home we’ve seen the very same sticky toffee puddings in Waitrose, and they may have slipped into my shopping basket! If you’re looking for them you’ll recognise the Cartmel lettering from the photo above.

But even without the sticky toffee pudding history, the village was picturesque - but first join me on a walk to the village.

It wasn’t a long walk into the village, but as soon as you could spot the race course you knew you weren’t far off.

It was a lovely picturesque village, full of cottages, character and views.

On the outskirts of the village was the village lock up. Lock ups date from the 18th or 19th centuries when rural communities struggled to police burglaries, drunkenness and the stealing of livestock. These were built as places of temporary detention for rogues, drunks and miscreants until they could be brought before the area magistrate. This building fell out of use in the second half of the 19th century, and was awarded listed status in 1970. More recently, in 2018, the upper storey was added and it was repurposed as holiday accommodation.

But it wasn’t just the sticky toffee of Cartmel that we got to taste. We also tried its beer - also good, and ate at Simon Rogan’s Rogan & Co, the more relaxed of his restaurants in the village. This was the menu.

My cocktail was pretty special too, complete with nasturtium leaves.

We spotted this adventurous sheep on one of our walks back, perfectly happy grazing on the top of a wall. Like you do.