Lake District August 2019 - day 4

I had originally included Friday in the same post as Thursday, but then of course wrote more than I was expecting, haha. Friday was a little bit of a write-off; although I didn't need to leave Kewick till 3pm, I didn't do very much. After checking out of my room I went to the minor injuries unit at Keswick's small hospital to get my eye seen to. (Thankfully I was able to leave my heavy holdall at the B&B.) The weather was grey and wet, the clouds heavy and rain constant, so I guess the silver lining of my eye issue was that I didn't have to try and persuade myself to go hiking up a steep hill in the rain. While I'd enjoyed it on Wednesday, and as much as I was loathe to leave this walker's paradise having only done half a day's worth of walking, I wasn't really in the mood.

Two nurses looked at my eye and couldn't see either a scratch or anything stuck, so goodness knows what was wrong. But they gave me some antibiotic ointment to use for a few days to keep infection away, just in case. By the next day the feeling of something caught in there had thankfully gone and my eye felt completely normal again a few days later.

After leaving the hospital I headed back up towards the town centre and an independent café I'd seen recommended online, which apparently sold the best scones in town - Mrs F's Fine Food Emporium. There was a handwritten A4 poster on the door: "We welcome all races, religions, countries of origin, sexual orientations, genders. We stand with you, you are safe here." They're also dog-friendly, cyclist-friendly, and child-friendly, with space to park bikes and locks available to borrow, and a table upstairs for kids to do some arts and crafts. I loved it the moment I opened the door. It's very quirky, with the thrift-store furniture mismatched and wobbly-legged, pages of old comic books pasted onto some of the walls, vintage clothing and collectables scattered around for decoration or sale, small piles of old books dotted here and there, a knitting corner, and works by local amateur artists up on the walls. There was a poster up about the Chatty Café Scheme, which have "Chatter & Natter Tables" where customers can just sit and have a good old-fashioned interaction with other customers if they wish. Of course all the food is homemade, and the coffee roasted locally. I ordered a scone with jam and cream and sat listening to the old man playing the piano. It seems he goes in there most days at the same time for about an hour to do that :)

Scone with jam and cream

Mrs F's Fine Food Emporium

Mrs F's Fine Food Emporium

After sitting quite contentedly in Mrs F's Fine Food Emporium for a couple of hours reading my book, I decided to make my way down to the lakeshore for a last look. The ornamental gardens and public park just by it were much quieter than the previous days, though there were a few people about despite the rain. Someone was busking with an accordion in the underpass. I only lingered there a little while, looking out at the choppy white-tipped water and the fells half-obscured through low clouds and rain. I went back to the B&B to collect my holdall and Graham kindly offered me a lift down to the bus station. They journey back was fine and uneventful, and I got home shortly before 10pm.

Unsurprisingly, I loved the Lake District, and it has been added to my places-to-revisit list!

Lake District August 2019 - day 3

For the Thursday I'd booked myself onto an all-day organised group tour with Mountain Goat, which does tours over the north of England - Lake District, Manchester, Yorkshire - and North Wales. I did the High Adventure, covering the western Lake District and taking in the Langdales, Blea Tarn, Hardknott Pass, the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, and Muncaster Castle, as well as a lot of great scenery.

I was picked up at 9:30am at a bus stop just a five-minute walk from my B&B, and the only other people on the minibus were a middle-aged couple from Texas. As we left the town, heading south towards Grasmere, the driver/guide explained that "Keswick" is a Viking name, coming from the Old Norse for 'place that cheese is made'. Nowadays it's more known for making the famous Derwent Pencils, after graphite was discovered in the 16th century. There's even a pencil museum in the old factory. I made a note of everything the guide said as we made our way through the countryside towards the Langdales:

• The Lake District is England's largest National Park, at 900 square miles. It has a permanent population of 30,000, which increases by 18 million or so every summer. Generally, the first snow falls in November and the last of it melts in April. Keswick's elevation is only 100-120 feet (30-36m) above sea level, though, so other places get more snow.
• Several hundred years ago the whole area was forest. The landscape we see today was created by humans and is very heavily managed. Trees are starting to be replanted, but many worry that it is too late, that the damage to the landscape is done.
• Thirlmere is a reservoir created by the Manchester City Corporation at the end of the 19th century to supply water to the city. It used to be two natural lakes, and the name comes from Old Norse.
• Most of the rock in the area is metamorphic, i.e. slate or granite. Different minerals in the rock result in different colours, so pink slate, seen closer to the coast, comes from the presence of iron oxide, and green slate from chlorite, etc.
• We passed through Dunmail Raise, a low-level pass that joins the northern and southern parts of the Lake District. The name comes from a cairn located in the pass, which, according to folklore, is the burial place of Dunmail, the last king of Cumbria. The guide said after Dunmail's death his land eventually ended up as part of Scotland; indeed, online sources say that the name Dunmail could have come from the real 10th century king of Strathclyde, Dyfnwal ab Owain, and that the cairn could have been a boundary marker between the kingdoms of Westmorland and Cumberland, and/or marked the southern extent of the kingdom of Strathclyde.
• There is a heavy Viking influence in the Lake District, particularly in the language: lakes are meres, mountains are fells, valleys are dales, streams are becks. 'Gras' in Grasmere is from the word for pig or boar, and Windermere used to be known as Winandermere, from 'Winand's lake'.
• When the Vikings arrived they found the native people living mainly by the coast. They were happy to settle more inland, in mountainous landscapes they were more familiar with.
• The Lake District has approximately 5000 miles of drystone walls, and most are at least a couple of hundred years old. They were created following numerous Inclosure Acts, which encouraged landowners to enclose open fields and common land so they could have legal property rights. This meant that many tenant farmers were either offered compensation to leave or were unwillingly forced to, so that landlords could use more efficient and productive methods to farm.
• Drystone walling is very expensive; the guide said he recently paid £1500 for 10 metres. The stones that stick out from the top at an angle are called coins and are integral to the structure; if they get knocked off then the wall crumbles, so most farmers put a wire fence in front of the wall to protect it - so don't go sitting on top of a drystone wall! Not that I'd imagine it would be very comfortable anyway.
• We passed the village of Elter Water, a pretty little place which was bought by a timeshare company - so house prices skyrocketed and young people, the next generation of farmers, were priced out and forced to leave. The same is true of a number of other villages. Ugh.
• Herdwick sheep are born black and gradually become white over the years.
• The National Trust own around 25% of land in the Lake District, much of which they were bequeathed by Beatrix Potter. She was a keen conservationist and sheep farmer, and used the royalties from her books to buy a number of farms because she wanted to protect and preserve the unique landscape, and the not-very-profitable Herdwick sheep which she loved.

In Great Langdale Valley

After driving through the Great Langdale Valley, we moved up into Blea Tarn Pass, a hanging valley which connects the Little and Great Langdale Valleys. (A hanging valley is basically one which drops down into a larger, wider one - think of a mountain valley with a river, leading to a big waterfall where the cliff drops down and there's a huge valley below.) Blea Tarn is a small lake, 'blea' meaning blue and 'tarn' from the Viking word 'tjörn', meaning teardrop. It's actually a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) so going in the water is prohibited. We stopped for photos at a point from which we could see the Great Langdale Valley and Blea Tarn, and I gazed much more at the valley we'd just come through. A peregrine falcon danced overhead in the wind.

Looking towards Great Langdale Valley from Blea Tarn Pass

Blea Tarn

After getting back in the minibus we continued down to Little Langdale and past Fell Foot Farm, which has been in the same family for several generations. They came there because an ancestor used to make whiskey illegally (moonshine) in nearby caves; he got rich and bought a sheep farm, casting his descendants into poverty - there is little or no profit in sheep farming, so farmers basically live on subsidies and manage the land.

From Little Langdale Valley we went into Wrynose Pass ('pass of stallions'), which has a single-track road and some of the steepest inclines in the country. We stopped at a viewpoint and could just about see the Yorkshire Dales in the far distance. The road continues down to Duddon Valley and then up again into Hardknott Pass, where it becomes the steepest road in England with a gradient of 1 in 3. (I had to look up what that means: for every three units you move horizontally, you move one unit vertically. E.g. move 1m up for every 3m forward.) It's regarded as one of the most challenging roads in the country with some very tight hairpin bends in addition to its steepness; minibuses are only able to go down it from Duddon to Eskdale, not the other way around. There is an old Roman fort in the pass, which I would have really liked to see, but sadly we didn't stop.

View from Wrynose Pass

Included in the tour was a trip on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, often known as "La'al Ratty", a heritage narrow-gauge line built on the route of a wider one used to transport iron ore out of Eskdale in the late 19th century. We arrived at Dalegarth station and the guide saw us onto the 11:50 steam train to Ravenglass, the only coastal village in the Lake District National Park. The seven-mile trip would take about 45 minutes and the weather was cloudy but dry so I decided to sit in a carriage with a roof but open sides. It was good! The train was only half full, though we passed one going the other way which could not have fitted another person on it. That one had a beautiful bright blue steam engine and the driver had a gorgeous chocolate spaniel puppy sat next to him, which must be very well trained to not jump out!

At Dalegarth station

On the train to Ravenglass

The downside of sitting in a carriage with open sides was that, as we arrived at the estuary and neared Ravenglass, a gust of wind blew something into my left eye. Whatever it was wouldn't go away, and it felt like I had an eyelash in there that wouldn't shift, and I spent the rest of the day in discomfort and painful irritation every time I blinked. Booooo. Fun fact as we left the station, though: a finger-post pointed towards the towns at either end of Hadrian's Wall (Bowness-on-Solway 55 miles away on the west coast, and Wallsend 139 miles away on the east coast), and Rome, 1127 miles away. Ravenglass, with its estuary and natural harbour, was an important naval base for the Romans; it was the most southerly point of their Cumbrian coastal defence system, and so a sort of extension of Hadrian's Wall and the empire's western and northern frontier.

For lunch we stopped at nearby Muncaster Castle, still home to the Pennington family. It's one of those family attractions with a castle museum, gardens and grounds, a café and gift shop, children's play area, etc. We had two hours there so I mooched around in the gift shop for a little while, then went to get lunch - tomato soup and a bread roll - before going to the 2pm birds of prey flying display. The setting was lovely, in a meadow with woodland behind it, the pretty pink-hued castle to the left, and a view of the fells on the other side of the valley directly in front. I love birds of prey and I think this was the best display I've seen. They brought out a beautiful barn owl, a black-chested buzzard eagle, a Saker falcon (impressively fast! can fly up to 62mph), a Verreaux's eagle-owl (somewhat creepy black eyes), a few African hooded vultures, some yellow-billed kites, and another golden-coloured kite I didn't catch the proper name of. A wild peregrine appeared at one point, too. I like that these places make an effort to educate people about vultures, which are often misunderstood and disliked. They're great, and needed; they clear up things that would otherwise spread disease. A sad, infuriating fact they told us was that many poachers in Africa poison elephant carcasses after removing the ivory tusks, in order to kill vultures, because they think that the circling groups of birds give away their position to the authorities - in June 2019 alone 537 vultures in just one small area died from this poisoning.

Birds of prey display at Muncaster

Part of Muncaster Castle

"Tom Fool's Tree", the ancient sweet chestnut

After the flying display I headed round the side of the castle, where I was happy to find an enormous, magnificent, ancient sweet chestnut tree, on the edge of the grounds where there's a great view of the valley below and fells beyond. We left Muncaster at 3:15pm and headed north along the coast. Catching a shimmering glimpse of the Irish Sea (and the Isle of Man can be seen on clear days), we passed Sellafield. It used to be a nuclear power station but is now a reprocessing plant for used nuclear fuel rods from all over the world, and an authority on nuclear power station decommissioning. The site directly employs 10,000 local people. There's a big area of sand dunes near Ravenglass, which gradually turn to low plains, rising to fells covered in darkening clouds and softly obscured with rain. Moving inland the landscape becomes gentle rolling farmland, then low, broad, grazed, treeless fells which reminded me of Dartmoor. Due to their proximity to Sellafield, the local villages like Ennerdale Bridge are quite well off, unlike the old mining villages elsewhere which are quite deprived. The guide didn't say anything about Ennerdale valley itself but I know that it's somewhere I'd like to visit one day, because the place is basically undergoing rewilding - they're leaving nature mostly to its own devices and letting it return to wilderness. Vehicular access is prohibited, the nearest road being a couple of miles away, so you can only reach it on foot, possibly bicycle. I'd love to see it way in the future, when it's had a lot of time to recover and flourish; it's only been 10 years so far. The project's vision about it being "for the benefit of people" is a minor irritation, though, as it'd be great if there were some places just for the benefit of nature and wildlife rather than humans, but it's still an exciting project that needs to be done in many more places across the country and world.

We passed a village with a Scottish name, Kirkland, and you can see Scotland from the area on a clear day. Before the 16th century this part of what is now northern England considered itself neither English or Scottish. Border Reivers were notorious, clans raiding all over the Border country regardless of victims' nationality, those struggling to survive robbing and killing those who were also struggling to survive. They left their mark on the English language - bereavement, blackmail, etc.

Moving down into the Vale of Lorton the land becomes more fertile, with hedges instead of drystone walls, and cows instead of (or as well as) sheep. It leads to the Whinlatter Pass, where the Whinlatter Forest is owned by the Forestry Commission, which was set up in 1919 to replenish the UK's timber supply after World War I. Scots Pine is the UK's only native pine and one of only three native conifers; others were introduced by the Forestry Commission to be harvested.

Bassenthwaite Lake

The lake to the north of Keswick, which I'd seen after coming out of the Whinlatter Pass on the public bus route the day before, is Bassenthwaite Lake, the only 'lake' among the 16 bodies of water that make up the English Lakes. The others are either 'meres', named by the Vikings, or 'waters', named by the Victorians. Being on a flood plain between Bassenthwaite and Derwentwater, Keswick can get flooded easily, and of course suffered heavily in the 2009 and 2015 Cumbrian floods. The water level of the River Greta, one of two which flow through the town, was several metres below the tops of the flood barriers when I was there, but during the floods had broken over the top of them.

We got back to Keswick shortly after 5pm. The twice-weekly market had almost finished packing up, but the shops were still open so I went into Ye Olde Friars, the chocolate shop established in 1927 and still run by the same family. It was surprisingly big in there, spread over what would have once been two separate premises. After wandering around the whole place, I bought a dark-chocolate marzipan log and a selection of their individual handmade chocolates: spiced cranberry truffle, rose cream, dark choc ginger, dark choc marzipan, praline shell, and an almond truffle. Yum!

Ye Olde Friars of Keswick

Ye Olde Friars of Keswick

I went back to the B&B to change into my walking boots and waterproofs, and have a snack of gingerbread and a bite of Kendal Mint Cake for energy, as I wanted to walk up to Castlerigg Stone Circle, just outside town. It was a 30-40 minute uphill walk to get there, but definitely worth it; I broke into a big grin and an "Oh wow!" the moment I got clear of the roadside trees and saw it. With its hilltop position providing an amazing 360-degree view of the surrounding fells and valleys, it is undoubtedly one of the most dramatically and atmospherically situated stone circles in the whole country, and the low clouds and rain which had arrived during my walk made it even more so. I loved it!

Castlerigg Stone Circle

View when walking back down towards town

River Greta in Keswick

Apart from the grazing sheep, I had the place entirely to myself for about 15 minutes until a family arrived. I could have stayed there gazing around for longer but there aren't any benches and I wanted to get to another viewpoint on the lakeshore. So I left and made my way back down the hill, through the town, down past the theatre and the boat landings, and along the shore to Friar's Crag, a popular viewpoint just a ten-minute walk from the boat landings. It gives a great prospect down the length of Derwentwater to the "jaws of Borrowdale".

Keswick boat landings on Derwentwater

Friar's Crag viewpoint

Very hungry by now, I went for dinner at a trendy little independent place called Fellpack. There were no tables free inside but thankfully the weather was dry and it was mild enough to sit outside. Their food is seasonal and I ordered their Italian Tuscan bean braise with kale, sundried tomatoes, and Mediterranean squid. It was delicious, as well as healthy, hearty, and wholesome :) Part of me wanted dessert, their amazing-sounding rice pudding with sour cherries and toasted almonds, but it was pricey and I was tired and my eye was bothering me, so I went back to the B&B, had a couple of chocolates, and went to bed. Maybe I should make that pudding myself at home one day soon.

Fellpack in Keswick

Tasty dinner - Tuscan bean braise with squid

Lake District August 2019 - day 2

A much cloudier day, was the Wednesday, and showers were forecast, but one cannot visit the Lake District and not go walking! I was booked onto an all-day minibus tour on the Thursday and would be leaving Friday afternoon, so my main walking day had to be Wednesday. My plan was to go walking in the morning, then rest in the afternoon by doing some sightseeing on the two-hour circular public bus route out west from town.

When planning the trip I'd found a walk to do, but after talking to B&B owner Graham the evening before I now couldn't decide if I wanted to still do that one, or go up Lattrigg, "Keswick's own fell", a small but steep one of 367m literally just behind the town. I looked through a little walking route booklet over my filling breakfast of cereal, porridge, yoghurt mixed with fruit and nuts, and buttered toast, and in the end decided to do the one which was very similar to that which I'd been planning on anyway. Instead of a circular route, it was a seven-mile, four-hour linear walk to the village of Rosthwaite, via Walla Crag, Ashness Bridge, and the hamlet of Watendlath, and I'd be able to return to town on the bus.

I left about 10am and took about an hour to get to Walla Crag. Early on I passed a seventy-something woman coming the other way, outfitted in proper walking gear; I'd like to be like her when I'm older, still going out hiking. Most of the way it was fairly easy, but the last stretch was a steep hill to get up to the crag's summit. A little herd of sheep were sheltering from the wind and incoming rain against a drystone wall. The view from the heather-strewn summit was amazing. It didn't cross my mind at the time but looking back at the photos I can see that the viewpoint I'd been to the evening before, Castlehead (162m), looked from Walla Crag (376m) like just another part of the fields below, it didn't stand out at all. Of course the rain really set in when I reached the top, and my onward route meant I was walking into it so had to keep my eyes half-closed in a squint. I was in a light mood, though, and was somewhat surprised to find that I didn't main getting pelted with rain too much. I was wearing full waterproofs so only my face was getting wet, as well as my hands when I took my phone out to have a look at the route instructions. I wonder if you can operate touchscreen phones through the plastic of waterproof pouches; if not, I may have to learn to read maps. Maybe that would be a good idea anyway if I want to get out walking more.

Panorama from Walla Crag

From Walla Crag, I walked along the ridge for another mile and a quarter, about an hour or so, parallel to the lake shore. I loved the view from above its narrowing southern end, of the jaws of glacier-carved Borrowdale and the imposing fells above it. Eventually heading downhill I was glad to find a finger-post that confirmed I was in the right place, and followed the short path it pointed out to Ashness Bridge.

Derwentwater and Borrowdale

Ashness Bridge, looking towards Skiddaw

The bridge is an old packhorse bridge on the single-track road to Watendlath, and is a popular photo spot because of its fine view looking down across the lake to Skiddaw in the distance. The rain had stopped, and I was ever so happy to catch the smell of woodsmoke - one of my favourite smells - coming from a little bothy just behind the bridge. A bothy is a basic mountain refuge used for shelter. They're free of charge to use, and more remote ones are kept unmanned and unlocked, but this one - the Bark House Mountain Base - is on a road going to a hamlet and isn't too far from other peopled places so National Trust volunteers just open it up during the day. The A-board outside said "Muddy boots welcome. Information point, open fire, and comfy chairs here." Yay!

The Bark House Mountain Base

Inside the bothy

The crackling fire was lovely. Tea and coffee were available for a small donation and you could refill your water bottle for free. The hut has no running water so volunteers bring it in portable containers. It was a National Trust information point as well as a shelter, so it wasn't as basic and empty as I expect some bothies are, it was cosy. There were a couple of volunteers there, at that point keeping an eye out for a Duke of Edinburgh group whose arrival was expected soon. Maps on the walls showed the paths and walking routes in the area, and one of the info boards explained that the name of the hut came from its original use as a storage place for tree bark that would be sent off to tanneries. After a sit-down, a snack, and a little bit of a warm-up, I started to head up the road to another viewpoint half a mile away, called Surprise View. Although I'd known that the whole walk should take about four hours, and was only about two hours in, I was a little dismayed when another finger-post informed me that Watendlath was another two and three-quarter miles, or approximately two hours and twenty minutes, away - and that wasn't even the finish line.

Surprise View

It only took me 15 minutes walking on the side of the road to reach Surprise View, instead of the 35 minutes the finger-post suggested. But it didn't really occur to me that it therefore might take me much less time than another two hours to get to Watendlath, and another finger-post pointed out a path to Lodore, so I decided to try and find the much closer Lodore Falls. But somehow that didn't go exactly to plan - I found a nice waterfall, but it wasn't Lodore Falls, and was bemused to arrive at the main road not by the Lodore Hotel but by the Borrowdale Hotel. I was only half a mile off, though, and knew where I was, the bus stop was directly opposite, and happily there was a little café in the big old farmhouse next door where I had some nice spiced carrot and lentil soup with a bread roll for lunch, perfect after a few hours outdoors in weather like that. They'd decorated a couple of the otherwise plain, whitewashed stone walls inside with a couple of murals, one being a simple map of Derwentwater and the land around it - so I learned that I'd crossed Shepherd's Crag and was in Shepherd's Café. I was the only customer at that point and sat there for about 45 minutes, sheltered from the elements at a table just inside the open doorway, looking out at Borrowdale and watching the heavy clouds and light rain sweeping across, until 3pm when I crossed the road to catch the #78 bus back to Keswick.

Notes taken on phone in stretch between Surprise View and reaching the end: Breathing in earthy smell of the damp mossy woods makes me grin. Listening to wind in trees, running becks, birds, otherwise wonderful quiet. -- Sound of soft raindrops standing under the trees in an oak woodland carpeted with heather and sphagnum moss. -- Smell of bracken. -- Hate the loud full clunky sound of my walking boots on the ground, especially rock. Walking is a light, natural way to travel but I don't feel like I'm treading lightly and respectfully. Barefoot has more grip, too. -- At the waterfall, noticed how the bark of the young oak trees on the cliff next to the falls blended in with the heather behind.

A pretty place

Waterfall selfie

At Shepherd's Café

At the bus station in town I switched to bus 77A, the public service going once every two hours clockwise around the circular route which takes in three lakes, a few mountain passes, a slate mine, and a forest. It first headed south along the slopes of Cat Bells on the western shore of Derwentwater... Notes taken during the journey:

Great views over lake, hotels on opposite shore dwarfed by hills. Winding lanes precarious, steep sides and few passing places. Hundreds of pheasants around on patches of land along the road; a little disappointed to realise they weren't free-range chickens. Grange Bridge looked lovely, a swimming spot on the river, cute pretty cottages, a café. Seatoller is a cute hamlet too. Into Honister Pass, so steep that bus slows almost to a crawl at points. A hostel next to the slate mine. At the mine, the hill drops steeply and the valley widens spectacularly. Pass ends at Buttermere lake, the fells on the opposite shore rising too steeply for a road there. Mid-point tiny Buttermere village. After Crummock Water fells become further away and less steep, the land around more rolling with more trees and farmland. Round to Low Lorton then to Whinlatter Pass. Whinlatter Forest has Go-Ape and adventure stuff and bike paths. Start going downhill and I see the valley open up wide below and see Bassenthwaite Lake to the north of Keswick and the town a few miles away. Pass through Braithwaite and back to main road. Back ten minutes later.

I didn't even try to take any photos through the half-steamed-up windows of the moving bus, but nor did I really want to. I managed a few poor ones at the impressive Honister Pass, but the rest of the time I was happy just gazing out and taking it in, being in the present. I'd like to go back to that pass one day, have a look properly and maybe go for a tour of the mine. There's an age-10+ Via Ferrata climbing route there, too, which a teeny tiny part of me likes the idea of, but I know my limbs would turn to jelly doing that.

Summit of the Honister Pass, and by the slate mine

Coming out of the bus station towards the high street, I noticed an independent bookshop called Bookends. Anyone looking at me would have seen my eyes go wide, my mouth go Oooh and break into a big smile, and me making a beeline for the shop like a child to a coveted toy. Haha. I spent about half an hour in there, and was unable to resist buying an absolute gem of a book called Jacob's Room is Full of Books: A Year of Reading, by Susan Hill - a sort of diary, with several entries for each of the twelve months, reflecting on what she has read, or done regarding books, what else that throws up in her thoughts, and other little unrelated observations of things in her daily life. I've read the first two months/chapters already, and love it, I can imagine myself writing something similar, and it conjures up a picture in my mind of being curled up in an armchair with a blanket and a book, in a cosy home full of books and lit warmly with lamps, like the house we stayed in last summer in Sydney. An absolute dream! After leaving the bookshop I spotted a café, closed by this time, called Laura In The Lakes! I can also so imagine myself running a little place like that.

"A town isn't a town without a bookstore" - completely agree!

I went back to the B&B and got changed, rested for an hour, then headed back out to have dinner at the Royal Oak pub, which I'd chosen to go to after looking online at the menus of a few different places. It was busy but they managed to find a table for me. While I'm happy in my own company, there's something comforting, after spending the day alone with few or no other people around, about just being in a busy place, and being surrounded by chatter and civilisation and people going about their lives. That applies to walking through town on the way home after a day by myself in the office as much as it does to having dinner in a pub after a day of solo hiking. Anyway, I ordered a glass of their homemade lemon, ginger, and elderflower cordial, and Cumberland sausage with champ, onion gravy, and cider and apple chutney. Both were yummy. The sausage came in the traditional coil shape so was longer than normal, but it was very good quality and somehow I managed to eat all of it and the substantial pile of mash. Some veg would have been welcome, but a side of wilted greens was an extra £3.50, more than my fishcake and chips the night before had cost. Did you know that sticky toffee pudding is from the Lake District? (A pair of chefs started serving it in their hotel the 1970s, from a recipe they'd got from a hotel owner in Lancashire, who'd got it from two Canadian air force officers who lodged at her hotel in WW2.) So of course, for dessert I had sticky toffee pudding with toffee sauce and custard =] After that I went back to the B&B and collapsed into bed, reading for a while. A very enjoyable day!

A Cumberland sausage coil with mash and onion gravy

Sticky toffee pudding and custard - yum

Lake District August 2019 - day 1

Last week I went to the beautiful Lake District for the first time - yaaaay! Being unable to drive, I travelled up there via plane, train, and automobile (well, the last was a bus rather than a car). Early Tuesday morning I flew up to Manchester from Southampton, which takes just 40 minutes, and by 8:30am was on the train to Windermere. It was funny getting on the train with local commuters, and getting off it two and a quarter hours later with tourists. From Windermere, I caught the 11:09 bus to Grasmere.

From my travel journal as I was on the bus: "After just a few minutes I'm already loving it, it's so beautiful, stunning! Lovely rolling green hills rising steeply to fells, trees everywhere, wonderful clear streams, such pretty Victorian buildings."

Windermere lake, from the bus

Grasmere was smaller than I was expecting; it's a tiny village and all of the places I was planning to go to there were within a five-minute walk of each other. I went first to Green's Cafe & Bistro for lunch, and ordered their Rarebit With Attitude - basically a rarebit with chilli-lime-ginger jam, served with crisps and salad. It was nice enough, but personally I didn't think it was worth £8.50. I also forgot that rarebits have mustard in, and I'm not a fan of mustard. It didn't fill me up either, but I didn't get a pudding, thinking I would get one after dinner later on. Oh well!

I was happy to discover the Herdy shop! Herdy is a small retail chain based in the Lake District and their slogan is "Made to make ewe smile" - and it does, it's so cute! They sell a wide range of things (umbrellas, mugs, keyrings, bags, coasters, baby things, stationery, etc.) decorated with the simple but very cute design of Herdy the Herdwick sheep and/or Sheppy the sheepdog. I didn't let myself buy anything, because I don't need a mug or a large umbrella or an absolutely adorable toy sheep...

After resisting temptation in Herdy, I crossed the village green to the Heaton Cooper Studio and pottered around there for a while. William Heaton Cooper founded the gallery in the late 1930s and the place now exhibits the artwork of four generations of the family. They sell prints of the works and a wide range of art supplies; of course there's also the nowadays-expected pretty little gifts and homeware items, and a café. They also sold books, mostly ones on art, but some nature-writing and local interest. I really liked one in particular, but, again, didn't let myself buy it, as I was planning to go to the bookshop opposite afterwards.

Of course, with Sam Read Bookseller's being a lovely independent bookshop, I spent about an hour in there. I did let myself buy one book, The Art of Mindful Reading... and also left with a list of 19 other books to add to my ever-increasing "To-read" list! (Mostly from their delightfully-named 'Curious non-fiction' section.) On a related note, I wish I was more familiar with - more interested in, I guess - traditional poetry and art. Some famous names spent time in and were inspired by the Lake District - William Wordsworth (lived and died in Grasmere), Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Ruskin, etc. - but I know none of their works. I've heard of Daffodils but don't actually know it beyond being able to recognise the first line or two. I am a bookworm, but I know nothing of classic poetry and there are many pieces of classic literature that I've never read.

It was nearly 3pm by this point, I'd been up since 5am and was carrying round my cumbersome holdall, so I went next door to Lucia's Café & Bakehouse for a sit-down and a cinnamon bun. I also gulped down two glasses of water, having barely had any to drink all day. I loved that they baked everything from scratch on site, in the small kitchen right behind the serving counter. After that I went to find the Grasmere Gingerbread Shop! I love gingerbread, be it cake or biscuit. Grasmere cook Sarah Nelson came up with a recipe in 1854 that became very popular locally, and nowadays queues out the door are normal. The shop is in the old church cottage, which is tiny, and because the gingerbread is made in the same building, on the other side of a partition wall, the shop section is so miniscule that only five or six customers can squeeze in, and you don't really feel able to take a few minutes to look around at their full range. I liked it, though. They probably could afford to get their products made elsewhere and use more of the cottage space for the shop, but they choose not to, and it means the place keeps a sense of originality and history; it's easy to imagine some shops being that small a couple of centuries ago. Oh and the smell! You could smell the gingerbread from the front door :) I bought a packet of six pieces and put it in my bag to enjoy over the week. I was only in the queue for ten minutes and it had tripled in length by the time I came out.

I had a wander around the rest of the village and came back to the main road. Another place I wanted to go in Grasmere was Barney's Newsbox. It's a newsagent, selling the usual stuff you find in newsagents nowadays... and hundreds upon hundreds of jigsaw puzzles! The upstairs was absolutely crammed full of them, every flat horizontal or vertical surface excepting a bit of floor space was used, so much so that only one person could actually fit in between shelves and I couldn't get further than the top of the staircase, which was likewise lined with puzzle boxes. I wish I'd had time to stay and explore it a little more.

I had another bus to catch at 4:15, but before that I went to find the village hall, which was holding The Lake Artists' Society's annual Summer Exhibition. You needed to make a small donation to go in and I didn't have enough change left, but they had postcards of the artworks out front, so I got to have a look anyway. As with poetry, I sometimes wish I had a better knowledge of and appreciation for art.

The 4:15 bus leaving lovely Grasmere was to Keswick, the market town on the shores of Derwentwater in the northern Lake District. I sat on the top deck again to see the views on the way :) Grasmere is roughly halfway between Windermere and Keswick so it was just over half an hour's journey, and I was happy to find the town a very nice little place. It took me less than 15 minutes to walk from the bus station at the bottom of town, through the town centre, to my B&B at the other end. Owner Graham let me in, gave me a map of the town, asked what my plans were, and recommended a couple of walks. I rested for a couple of hours before heading out to walk up to Castlehead, a viewpoint just outside town.

Just 15 minutes after leaving the B&B I reached the top of the hill, and the view was amazing. Derwentwater was spread out below, surrounded by fells, the town was partly visible through some trees to the right, and the sun was just setting over to the west. A dial on a cairn showed the names, heights, and directions of 30 fells you can see from there in clear weather. An Irish couple, perhaps in their sixties, were sat on the bench sharing a flask of tea and a sandwich, the gent talking away amiably to his wife. I stayed up there for just over half an hour then made my way back down as it was getting dark.

I headed down to the lake shore, as I hadn't been there yet, and found the Theatre by the Lake. If I'd gone out earlier I would have bought some fish and chips and eaten by the water, but it was pretty dark by this point, so I went back up into town and ate my late dinner on a bench in the market square. It was about 9pm and pleasantly lively out, people milling around going to and from restaurants and pubs, or the chippy like me, or enjoying an ice-cream. Just off the market square was Packhorse Court, a courtyard outside a pub with a few little shops and a Mexican restaurant, and decorated prettily with strings of lights, bunting, and flower-filled hanging baskets. I walked back to the B&B, had a piece of gingerbread for a sort of pudding, and went to bed after a very long but very nice day.