It was with a sense of excitement and, I confess, trepidation that I arrived at Waterhead for a weekend of Lake District Watercolour Painting. Signing up for something like this can feel a little like putting your creative neck on the line!
Testing the water over dinner on the Friday evening, I tentatively threw out a line about having not ever really done anything like this before. I was pleasantly surprised, and not a little relieved, to discover that we were all novices, and all nervous about our impending foray into the world of paint, colour, tone, perspectives and vanishing points.  Having established our common fragility, we relaxed and enjoyed a sumptuous three-course meal whilst Dawn Pretty, our artist in residence, outlined what the weekend might hold, promising us that we would all have a work of art to hang on our wall by the end of the weekend. (more…)

Colin Fox, Marketing manager here at English Lakes Hotels will fly out to Hong Kong and also visit Guangzhou at the end of this month to join a group of UK tourism professionals promoting their businesses at Destination Britain China.

This is my third promotional visit to the country having been on previous trips to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong in 2011 on a VisitBritain mission and an independent trip to Shanghai back in 2003, prior to the UK having Approved Destination Status. Whilst planning for the upcoming visit I have met some really interesting people who are also linked to China and tourism in one capacity or another and I thought it would be great to share some of our collective thoughts and experience. In this first blog I spoke to Bob Cartwright.
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