Tuesday 14 August 2018

Meres, Tarns and Daffodils

Hello, thanks for calling in, it's lovely to see you here.  If you are expecting to see a post about my progress through my summer list during the third week of the school summer holiday I'm afraid you might be disappointed because I made no progress whatsoever.  Actually, that's not strictly true because I did read a book, but I didn't finish it so I can't tick it off the list yet.  There are still eleven things left on the list and three weeks of the holiday left so I'd better get a move on.  No, the list took a back seat last week because...we were on holiday with our children and grandchild in the Lake District.
 
We had a wonderful time together.  There is so much to do in Cumbria that I feel we barely scratched the surface of the area and I'd like to go back there to do some more.  There was boating, walking, fishing (not me), ghyll scrambling (definitely not me), museum visiting (definitely me), reading and knitting (both obviously me).  There was also a great deal of "Ooh, ah, look at the view!"  We stayed in an old farmhouse, self-catering, and in the evenings we enjoyed sitting around the table together, playing board games and chatting in the hot tub.  I'd like to show you some of the views we enjoyed.
  
On the first day the sun beat down and we headed to the beach at Silecroft.  With a free car park, a wickedly good ice-cream shop, warm sea and sand that was perfect for building castles it met all of our needs and we couldn't understand why there weren't more people there. 
 
 On the second day some of us went to Wray Castle, a National Trust property on the shore of Windermere in which Beatrix Potter enjoyed a summer with her family when she was a teenager.  Those who went on this outing reported that it was brilliant for children of junior school age but that I would have hated it.  This photo probably sums up why.  Honestly!  The Best Beloved sent it to me with the caption, "Look what they've done to Mrs Tiggywinkle.  She looks like Mrs Overall."  If you are familiar with Julie Walters' character in Victoria Wood's Acorn Antiques, you will understand. 
 


 On the third day we drove to Bowness-on-Windermere first thing in the morning and collected a little boat.  We pootled around the lake water all day, mooring up at public jetties and hopping on and off wherever we fancied, with a longer stop in Ambleside for lunch.  We all enjoyed it except for Tom Kitten, who doesn't think he likes boats and knows he doesn't like cumbersome life jackets, but everyone else thought it was a holiday highlight, despite the grey sky and the grey water. 
 


 On the fourth day some of us went for a walk around Tarn Hows in the sunshine. Everyone who did this declared it to be a holiday highlight.
 
On the fifth day some of us went ghyll scrambling but there are no photographs because there are no pockets in a wetsuit and even if there were, you need two hands to hold on to the rockface you are climbing. 
 

 
On the sixth day some of us went to Coniston Water and then visited the museum in the village.  I like a local museum, you usually learn the history of a place and how that has informed its present and I thought this one was very good, full of information about copper mining, quarrying, climbing, John Ruskin, Arthur Ransome and Donald Campbell.  The Best Beloved was especially keen on the Donald Campbell gallery and I thought about my sister, who loved Ransome's Swallows and Amazons when she was young and became a sailor when she grew up.
 
On our last night there something magical happened: the Best Beloved and I went outside and sat in the garden at around midnight, craning our necks to look at the spectacular starry sky.  With no light pollution and no clouds the stars were vivid points in the darkness, and the Milky Way arched above the white farmhouse as far as we could see.  We watched three satellites steadily moving across the sky and then, best of all, shooting stars, meteors from the Perseid showers.
 

 
On the seventh day some of us went to Grasmere and visited Dove Cottage in Town End where William Wordsworth lived with his wife, sister, sister-in-law and three children while visitors including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey and Sir Walter Scott came to stay in the spare bedroom.  It must have been a bit of a squeeze.  We had a guided tour and our timed ticket told us to knock on the front door five minutes before our tour was due to begin but I was disappointed to find the door already open and the guide waiting, so she very kindly closed it so that I could knock and ask if Mr Wordsworth was at home!  If you have even a passing interest in Wordsworth I recommend this visit, it's very well done.  There is a museum too, but we didn't have time for that so I told the Best Beloved that we would have to return another time!  Here are some more photos of the interior of the house - it's quite dark, flash photography is not allowed and the Best Beloved took them on his 'phone so please make allowances.
 
 
 This is Wordsworth's favourite writing chair, in which he would sit in the evenings and write after a day spent walking outdoors.
 

"For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils." 
We don't know for certain that Wordsworth was referring to this couch BUT this couch was in the sitting room then and, as the guide says, how many couches would he have had?!  I am the only person for whom this was a holiday highlight and that's fine.  I loved it.
 
Then we came home and it poured with rain but we didn't mind because we had enjoyed a wonderful holiday.
 
Of course, there is somewhere else I visited too, and I expect you may be able to guess where it was, but I shall save that for next time because it really deserves a whole post of its own.
 
See you soon.
 
Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x

18 comments:

  1. Sounds like an ideal place for a holiday. We have visited England often, but have never visited the Lake District.

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    1. I think the reason it was such a great holiday is that there are so many different things to do there for different sorts of people. x

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  2. Very nice holiday. I think I can guess the other spot you visited and look forward to hearing about your time there.

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    1. Thanks Ellen. It really was a super holiday. x

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  3. It looks like you all enjoyed a wonderful holiday, and you managed to fit so much in!
    I'm looking forward to reading your next post too. I think I can guess where you visited. X

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    1. I expect you can guess. We really did have a wonderful time. x

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  4. A holiday like this, with a little bit of history, some nature activities, a beach, a boat and stargazing seems to me to be just about the perfect balance. I've heard much about the Lakes District, mostly in regards to Beatrix Potter, so perhaps that will be the place you visited.

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    1. It really was a good balance, Lorrie. You've guessed correctly. x

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  5. What a wonderful holiday, just my cup of tea! x

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    1. I think you would probably have done more walking than I did! x

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  6. What a fantastic post! I adore all the writers that you have mentioned! AND I was going to quote the last part of "Daffodils" to you, since I memorized it when I was 13! (We had to memorize the first part for school, but I told the teacher that I thought the very last part was the point of the poem and so I learned that by heart too!)
    My son was in London recently and he stayed in Kensington. He just happened to walk past a lovely church and decided to go into to see it. GUESS WHAT?! He called me and told me the name and it was the church that Beatrix Potter had attended as a child! I loved that! St Mary Abbots, I think was the name of it.
    Sorry this is so very long. I truly loved all your photos!
    Richard and I saw the Milky Way on our honeymoon, in North Carolina in 1983! Lucky you, seeing the meteors too! x

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    1. Oh Kay, please don't ever apologise for a long comment, I love to read comments and the longer the better. St Mary Abbots - yes! Beatrix married William Heelis there in 1913, much to the chagrin of her parents, who felt that a country solicitor wasn't good enough for her. The Potter family lived in Bolton Gardens in Kensington. Your knowledge of Lakeland poets is fab, much better than mine (to my shame, I had never heard of Robert Southey) but I am inspired to read up now, having visited the landscape. I may even have to learn some off by heart! x

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  7. Oh, I'm so glad the guide let you knock at the door and ask for Mr Wordsworth! How many couches indeed - it must surely be the couch in the poem. Hard to imagine all the family fitting into the house let alone visitors. Your holiday sounds wonderful with something for all the family to enjoy. How wonderful to see the shooting stars. I can guess where you visited and look forward to your post about it:)

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    1. I really knew very little about Wordsworth before we visited but I'm hungry to learn more now. To visit the cottage and see the environment in which he wrote was fascinating and it was all done so well. I want to learn more about Dorothy Wordsworth too as I have a feeling she may have been the heroine of the tale. She wrote about seeing the daffodils in her journal two years before her brother used her entry to write his poem! x

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  8. Sounds like my kind of holiday except for the ghyll scrambling, not for me. Perfect family holiday with lots of lovely memories to treasure.

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    1. The ghyll scrambling wasn't for me either, I was quite happy to stay behind and look after Tom Kitten that day! It really was a lovely time together and I don't think I'll ever forget it. x

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  9. What a holiday! Lovely!
    Have a sunny sunday...
    Love from Titti

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    1. Ah, it really was lovely. Do you know that one of the girls in Swallows and Amazons is called... Titty! x

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