Saturday 9th May 2026

Today we visited Sainsburys in Cockermouth to buy a few groceries and empty our toilet cassette in their toilets. We then came on the short distance to visit my nephew Chris and his wife Mandy just outside Cockermouth. This is their beautiful house which they have built to their own specification.

It was great to see Chris and Mandy again after so long.

We had a tour of the house. They have some parrots.

Everything in the house is beautifully finished.

Chris reckons it was a bit of a struggle to get the house completed. It sounds like the project should have been featured on that Grand Designs TV programme.

Here's the view out from the front of the house at the top of the stairs. The hills in the far distance are over the Solway Firth in Scotland!

Here's the view from upstairs looking into the garden at the back of the house.

Chris told us a lot about the struggles he had to go through to get the house completed to his satisfaction but the result is superb and I'm sure he is really proud of what he has achieved.

Chris has worked for M Sport in Cockermouth for 27 years and is now a director of the company. M Sport builds rally cars. He took me on a tour of the factory.

This is a plan of the site. Note their test track. They employ about 250 people here.

Here's The Boardroom.

This is The Oak Room, used for smaller company meetings.

One of the companies products.

An old Formula 1 car in the company museum.

There are millions of pound worth of historic cars in the museum.

This evening Mandy cooked us a fantastic meal and we had lots of excellent wine which a friend of Chris's from France had sent him for Christmas.

Today we travelled 9 miles (14 kilometres).