After the walk, the best seat in the lodge

You come back from the fells with wet boots, a warm face and that particular tiredness that settles behind the eyes. The kettle goes on, someone claims the sofa nearest the wood burner, and within twenty minutes half the party is asleep in front of a film nobody chose. It is a fine way to spend an evening, but a small, deliberate reading corner does more for a walking holiday than any amount of daytime telly.

Lodges are almost perfectly built for it: timber walls, a low ceiling, a stove or electric fire, and a window onto the hills you have just walked. All it needs is a bit of intention, and a packing list that takes up less room than a pair of walking trousers.

Find the spot before you unpack

Have a look round with one question in mind: where would I actually sit for an hour with a book? In most lodges it is one of four places — the chair beside the log burner, the end of the sofa by the window, a corner of the dining bench, or the armchair in the second bedroom that nobody ever uses.

• Away from the door. Patio and boot-room entrances carry draughts and cold air. Two feet further in makes a real difference.
• Near the heat, not on top of it. Close enough to feel the stove, far enough that you are not shifting every ten minutes.
• With a socket within reach. Lodge sockets hide behind furniture or lurk in odd corners. Check before you commit, and pack a short extension lead if you rely on a lamp.
• Facing something worth looking at. A window onto the fells, a stack of logs, or a wall you can pin a postcard to. Not the back of the television.

Four things worth packing

The whole set-up fits in the bottom of a rucksack, and none of it is expensive.

• A wool or fleece blanket. Lodge heating is either fierce or off, rarely anything in between. A blanket means you are not fiddling with the thermostat all evening.
• A small lamp. The single biggest upgrade. Overhead downlights are bright, cold and unkind to a paperback; a rechargeable table lamp or a clip-on reading light solves it without hunting for a plug.
• Three or four paperbacks. Paperbacks, not hardbacks, and not your entire reading list.
• A hot water bottle. Cheap insurance on a cool evening, and it doubles as a warmer for the end of the bed.

Lighting and warmth, sorted in ten minutes

If the lodge lamp has a harsh white bulb, swap it for a warm one — 2700K is the figure to look for, and a spare costs very little. Failing that, angle the shade away from your eyes and towards the page, or use your own lamp and leave the overhead lights off entirely. A dim, warm pool of light does more for a reading corner than any amount of cushion arranging.

Temperature is the other half of it. Sit away from underfloor draughts, roll a towel along the bottom of a draughty door, and keep thick socks or slippers by the chair. If there is a wood burner, learn to damp it down before you settle — a stove that needs feeding every twenty minutes is not conducive to a chapter. Keep wet waterproofs and muddy boots in the boot room, not draped over the chair you are about to sit in.

What to read after a day on the fells

Long walks change what you want from a book. Anything demanding tends to slide off a tired brain, so this is the week for short chapters, familiar voices and writing about the landscape you have just crossed.

• A fell guide or route book. Reading tomorrow's walk over a mug of tea is one of the small pleasures of a lodge holiday, and it saves an argument in the morning.
• Nature and place writing. Something about hills, weather, sheep and stone walls sits naturally alongside a day in the Lakes, the Dales or Snowdonia.
• Short stories or poetry. Ideal for the twenty minutes before sleep, when a chapter feels like too much commitment.
• A novel you have already read. Comfort reading is underrated; there is no shame in a well-thumbed favourite.

Add a notebook and pencil to the pile. Jotting down where you walked, what the weather did and which pub you ended up in makes a better souvenir than a photograph of a trig point.

Set it up, enjoy it, leave it tidy

Give the corner ten minutes on your first evening and it will pay you back all week. Position the chair, drape the blanket, set the lamp, stack the books within reach and put the mug somewhere it cannot be knocked over. Then leave it alone — a reading corner works because it stays the same, and because everyone in the lodge knows what it is for.

On the last morning, fold the blanket, unplug the lamp, gather the paperbacks into one bag and wipe down the table. Leave the lodge as you found it, check the boots are dry, and start thinking about where the next one is.