I've just had one of the best breakfasts of my life. I'm in Keswick, sitting in the Wild Strawberry cafe, and I'm waiting for the Puzzling Place to open up.
"It's up there," says Gary, the utterly delightful owner of the Wild Strawberry, pointing out of the window towards an anonymous-looking side street. "Tucked away. Like a best-kept secret."
They're on winter opening times at the Puzzling Place so I have to wait till 11am to get in. No matter. I am so full of Cumbrian sausage I can barely focus.
Focus, however, is what you need when you enter "the Lake District's Most Unbelievable Visitor Attraction". As soon as you get in, you have to try and get through a wrought iron gate without lifting it. I stand staring and poke at it a bit with my finger. Can I get through it? Can I hell. Eleanor, who's working today, sees me struggling and comes over. "Ohhhhhh!" I exclaim, as the trick is revealed. I wander nonchalantly through the now opened gate and experience a flush of undeserved smugness at a puzzle cracked.
I still haven't entered the main exhibit. There are loads of puzzles to work out before you even start. I'm now staring at a brain teaser on the wall. "My maker doesn't need me," it reads, "the person who buys me won't use me and the person who uses me isn't aware of doing so."
I screw my mouth sideways and think for a bit. No. I'm not guessing this one right either. Eleanor whispers the answer in my ear*. "Ohhhhhh!" I go, for the second time in 10 minutes.
Eleanor is a teacher but she works here on Saturdays when Andy Wallis, the owner of Puzzling Place, has his day off. She shows me a picture of him in the Puzzling Place pamphlet. He's leaning sideways, posing in the Anti-Gravity room, the only room of its kind in the UK. He's grinning and affable-looking. I'm sorry not to be meeting him but Eleanor tells me she's known him since uni days. He went off with his brother to New Zealand and came back mind whirring with puzzles.
"Do you want to go in now?" she asks, as I finish having a go on a Tower of Hanoi – one of those maddening puzzles where you have to shift a stack of discs in ascending size from one rod to another. I nod. But there is one problem with this place. A puzzle fever has descended. And I must solve all puzzles.
The main exhibition is great. You can enjoy a series of eye popping optical illusions, interactive exhibits, sculptures and artwork. You can watch your own skin crawl and stand mouth agape as water drips upwards. At one point I shake my own hand. "Ohhhhhh!" I go, again. What I particularly like is how each exhibit comes with an explanation of why and how your brain thinks it's seeing what it's seeing. Motion parallax anyone? Thank you. I'll take two.
The Anti-Gravity Room is excellent. There's a sign hanging at its entrance that reads, "This room may lead to a feeling of disorientation or slight, temporary nausea. It may therefore, be an inappropriate environment for anyone who is not very sure-footed."
Bring it on, I think. And in I go.
If you are teetotal, I suggest you visit Keswick's Puzzling Place and head straight to the Anti-Gravity Room. It's the closest you're ever going to get to the feeling of being utterly pissed. It's peculiar. Balls roll uphill and everyone stands at an impossible slant. The room is completely static but your brain, in an effort to make sense of what your eyes are telling it, simply goes into meltdown.
The Puzzling Place is a great morning or afternoon activity for all the family. Every child I see there is enchanted and engaged. And they let dogs in. Your terrier can shake its own paw. Genius.
*it's a coffin
• The Puzzling Place, Museum Square, Keswick (puzzlingplace.co.uk), open 11am-5pm (not Mondays), adults £3.75, children over-five £2.90, family ticket £11.75. Emma stayed at the Skiddaw Hotel (0800 840 1243, lakedistricthotels.net/skiddawhotel/index.php), which has doubles from £104 including breakfast
