Onwards and upwards! - Advice needed!

Riding up to Tayvallich at the weekend to rendezvous with the wife for our wedding anniversary (shes flying and I'm riding then we stay a week in Tayvallich and she flys home and I ride back). I'm going to be splitting the journey over two days and obviously I want to make it an enjoyable ride so I thought I'd pop a post up to see if anyone could suggest good routes to weave into my journey.

This is the basic AA route planner route which shows my general direction:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

In all honestly I will probably stick a couple of hours in on the motorway at the beginning just to clear London and the South just as the roads are so crap here anyway but any suggestions once I hit like ... Birmingham-ish height onwards would be greatly appreciated .

Oh and if anyone lives half way up (circa north lake district) and wouldn't mind me sleeping in their garden for a night do let me know as if not I shall be wild camping ... somewhere