While we're back from our little weekend getaway and are getting back into our daily routines, let me show you the Lake District from my eyes. Or rather, from the eyes of the actual photographers considering how I almost always forget to take out my camera and click pictures. Most of these photographs were taken by Beyond Our Horizons so keep an eye out for more stunning photos on their Facebook and Instagram pages.
I believe that the very first thing one would notice upon entering the Lake District (apart from the lakes, rivulets and other water bodies everywhere you look) is that there are daffodils everywhere. This is the place that inspired William Wordsworth's poem Daffodils and it's pretty obvious why he wrote it. Even a noob like me felt like sitting down on one of those benches overlooking the meadows and attempting to create a verse or two about these vibrant yellow flowers.
These vibrant yellow flowers that had us believe that spring was indeed here.
And we would have continued believing that had we not been rained on throughout the weekend.
From the time we arrived at 8:30 pm on Friday till the time we left at 7:30 p.m on Sunday, we pretty much got rained on continuously. There were about two small two-hour stretches in the span of 48 hours when the four of us stopped shivering to skip about town and take in the scenery.
18.03.2017
The main scenery we were looking forward to was on a hike in the Lake District National Park. We were hoping to catch a glimpse of the majestic Scafell Pike which is the tallest mountain peak in England. The rain and mist were so bad on that day that all we saw was this:
If it hadn't been for all the lame jokes we cracked on our way to see almost nothing, we would have been very disappointed.
I should also mention that because I injured the back of my leg the last time I wore my hiking boots, I decided to only pack my regular running shoes this time. Turns out that they weren't water resistant and were ideal only for running on a treadmill so I had wet socks and cold feet on the first day. It also turns out that my favourite wind resistant jacket was not very water resistant on the sleeves. So I had wet arms as well that were constantly kept cold owing to the fact that the sweater under my jacket was also wet. Fun times.
In order to not freeze to death, we decided to stop for some nice British afternoon tea at Grasmere which is where Wordsworth spent a decade of his life and was later buried with his family. This charming tea room called Baldry's Cottage is a place you must stop at if you're planning to visit Grasmere.
Because we were in Grasmere, we spent the rest of the day nerdgasming on everything related to Wordsworth. This is the place where he spent a decade of his life.
This Daffodil Garden is what leads to Wordsworth's grave in the yard of St Oswald's church that he and his family frequented.
And this is where William and Mary Wordsworth were buried, "in the shade of a yew tree, one of the eight planted by the poet in this churchyard".
Our next stop was Dove Cottage, the home William and his sister Dorothy occupied when they moved to Grasmere.
He spent one of the most important personal and professional decades of his life, one of "plain living and high thinking", in this cottage. This is where he composed some of his best works, and this is where he got married to is wife Mary and fathered three of his children. In fact, the open window that you can see in the picture above is what used to be his bedroom before he got married. It was later occupied by his sister Dorothy.
Who else rememberes these lines from Daffodils:
Because it's quite possible that he was referring to this couch in those lines:
And this was the cuckoo-clock that inspired his poem by the same name:
This is a portrait of his puppy Pepper who was quite possibly a gift from his friend S.T. Coleridge.
And this is the view from William and Dorothy's famous terrace garden.
The shortest roof you can see in this picture is their home as most of it is sunken into the ground. Imagine the rest of the space empty without the other buildings. The direct view of the lake and the meadows is what they are said to have enjoyed while they lived in that house.
Visiting these old homes and getting a glimpse of life in those times is what makes one realise how far we've come. To think that even the privileged folk like Wordsworth had no running water, no electricity, no proper roofs and strange bathroom arrangements and that too, in a cold and damp country like England is eye-opening. It really makes you think about the conditions of their poorer counterparts.
But moving on, this here is a spectacle of another form of Bromance. One that I simply cannot unsee.
I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.
Anyway, we also learned fun things like how people back in the day wrote, folded their letters, and sealed them with wax.
Although I'm pretty sure the contents of those letters back then were way more dignified than what we sealed and brought home.
Then came the little spell of sunshine when we all got a little hyper but Shane completely lost it. He carried around my empty coffee cup and every time I said something stupid, he placed it on my head and asked me to wear my crown.
You'll have to ask him what that was about.
19.03.2017
This day started with the realisation that I could fit into a paper bag that carried an average sized cake.
So why stop there? I decided to turn that into my full blown Kardashian moment.
This is the day we visited The World of Beatrix Potter in Windermere and hogged on all the children's exhibits. It started off innocently while we solved puzzles and coloured digital images. But then, the other three found this wall-mounted puzzle thing which they just had to solve.
I can't tell you how embarrassing it was to watch as they meticulously planned and shifted pieces to solve it while other kids waited for their turn to play. But they waited in vain as there was nothing left to play with by the time these three were done.
It was at the shop of this attraction that we found the entire set of Beatrix Potter's works, all 23 of her children's books, being sold for £150. When we returned home, I found the same set for £30 on Amazon. Lady Campsalot and I almost want to sport a Kourtney Kardashian voice and accent to say, "Corporations!" and do a hair flick but we'd rather use that time to order the set using our Amazon Prime.
But here's to Lake District!
I'm already looking forward to going back on a sunny weekend to do more outdoorsy things! I also can't wait for our next weekend getaway :)