A few months ago we gave a friend a lift up to the North Cumbrian city of Carlisle. Originating as a Roman settlement to serve the forts on Hadrian's Wall, Carlisle became a diocese in 1132 after Henry I allowed the founding of a religious establishment. By the 19th century Carlisle had become an important railway city, serving as the northern end off the 72-mile Settle-Carlisle Railway. Much more recently Carlisle has been in the news for flooding, both in 2007 and in the past few weeks.

On the late summer weekend we visited it was dry in Carlisle, at least at the start. After spending the night in the city centre at the Ibis Hotel in Botchergate, we decided to go check out the Cathedral before heading off to parts unknown. The Carlisle Cathedral is a beautiful structure, made of red sandstone with features dating from various periods. For instance, most of the original nave was destroyed by the Scots in the 17th century, undergoing restoration in the mid 19th century. The stunning East Window features upper window lights from the 14th century and the lower lights date from 1861, and there is a sculpture in the nave created in the late 20th century.

Our senses exhausted by the beauty and variety of the Cathedral's details, we found ourselves stumbling into the central Lanes shopping district in search of a restorative caffeine fix to inspire us on our drive Elsewhere, as we had yet to know where Elsewhere was. The pedestrian lanes were alive and buzzing with the Continental Market which was conducting business under sunny skies with intermittent showers. As it was temporarily sunny and the Costa Coffee had tables outside, we decided to go for a usually trustworthy Costa espresso.

This particular Costa is quite small inside, and all available seating space was occupied. For some reason the staff seemed unusually giddy on this busy day, and one of them was having a bit of difficulty with the espresso machine as it kept spewing hot water about. As a result my double macchiato turned out looking a bit strange, capped with dark brown foam.

Fortunately it tasted all right, as I discovered once we were seated outside, and it was a welcome experience after the terrible push-button crappuccino we'd had for breakfast at the hotel. Andrew's normal-looking double macchiato was very good indeed, although it started to look a bit odd as well when the clouds suddenly opened without warning and dumped a bucketful of water on our table.

We retreated indoors to finish our drinks, standing awkwardly in the centre of the cafe as there was still no place to sit. Naturally, the moment we finished our last sips the clouds blew away and the sun shone brightly as if it had never been gone.