On holiday, I crave seclusion – but could I make a life in isolated splendour?

Not for the first time, Will Gore finds himself considering the merits of a full-time rural retreat

Ullswater in the Lake District at Glenridding, where Will was buzzed by RAF Typhoons (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

We got lucky. A week in the Lake District had been booked way back in the autumn, after we decided that the risks of a foreign holiday this summer were too great. Come May and June, when everyone we knew seemed to be scrabbling around paying top dollar for Airbnb rentals in random places, we had certainty at a reasonable price.

And when the time came, Lady Luck was on our side again with the weather. During our seven days in the north, it rained only twice. For the most part, the sun shone in clear skies and sprinkled itself prettily on to mighty Ullswater.

For all that it is a heavily managed and much-visited landscape, the Lake District is a wondrous part of England and relative seclusion is just about possible, especially on Ullswater’s southern shore where traffic is limited by the absence of any through road.