Keswick Day 2

 May 23rd Wet and cool

After another delicious breakfast at the guesthouse we programmed Lady Satnav and set off for Grasmere.   As we travelled it was amazing to see small streams running down the craggy slopes and there was a lot of surface flooding on the roads.   Taking photos through the car windscreen became a dance with the windscreen wipers.  

But it was still very beautiful and we loved looking at the patchwork of fields with their drystone walls and the flocks of sheep and lambs.  Such a wide variety of black, grey, brown and white.

Past Low Nest, then High Nest, then Dalebottom, Thirlspot, Thirlmere…once again the names gave great delight.   At Grasmere we followed the satnav until Little Sister spied a very easily managed car park so we stopped there.  Getting out of the car I said, “we’ll look at Google and get directions to the Gingerbread Shop” and as we both straightened up there beside the car was the front entrance to the shop itself.   I think  I told you that Little Sister is a Master Car Parker but she excelled herself in this!

At the back of the church beside the shop was William Wordsworth’s grave and a place evoking his famous host of golden daffodils.   In between the rain spots today nothing much appeared golden but with a nod to the famous gent and a brief search for those elusive squirrels we said goodbye to the many goldfinch flitting about and entered the tiny tiny Grasmere Gingerbread store.  

Apparently it was a school house from 1660 to 1854 but there wouldn’t have been room for many pupils.   Sarah Nelson, a Victorian Cook invented the now famous gingerbread in 1854 and it has been baked continuously for the 170 years since.  The staff dress semi-Victorian and smilingly supply the constant stream of customers.   Of course we purchased some, in a tin, and will eat the contents before we return home.  

As we exited the store a jackdaw sat on a post patiently providing photo opportunity and looking for crumbs or even bigger tidbits.   I was reminded of the poem in Mother’s old poetry book about “The Jackdaw of Rheims.”

Given it was still raining and we had ticked the box for Grasmere we reprogrammed Lady S for Coniston Water and drove out of town and out of the rain.   By the way, how many lakes do you think there are in The Lakes District?  Answers in the comments please.  The road to Coniston is windy, narrow and has an unrealistically high speed limit.   By this stage we were ready for a cup of tea and the busy little cafe had unfortunately sold out of cheese scones so we settled for a large pot of tea and drained it dry.  Then a short walk up the road, by now the rain had gone, to the Ruskin Museum.   

With a nicely painted frontage I had high expectations as I entered the gift/souvenir shop and went to get our tickets.  At £10 each it was on the higher side of what we’ve paid to date (slightly less that King Charles charges for Windsor) but I really wanted to see the Ruskin Lace  so without flinching paid up and went through.   First exhibits were about copper mining, then about the brave soldiers of  the First World War, then hardy Fell Climbers who formed an early search and rescue after the crash in 1944 of a Halifax Bomber in the southern fells of Lakeland.   Next was an exhibit on the Coniston Railway which ran for 100 years from the middle of the 19th century.  By this stage I was wondering where John Ruskin had got to.  And then, in a dark corner, was a series of cabinets detailing Ruskin’s birth, childhood, school days, travel, collections, art, his Grand Tour of Europe, his many inventions (including a glockenspiel made of local slate which surprisingly was semi melodious), his death and then finally a large cabinet of huge pull out drawers containing the embroideries I was interested in.  

One drawer was broken and couldn’t be viewed but the others were well displayed and most interesting. Little Sister and I were both intrigued by the fine gauge of the knitted night cap Ruskin’s father is said to have worn.

Little Sister and I had a good look at embroideries and one other older lady also wanted to see them.   Otherwise it seemed patrons of the Ruskin Museum had actually come to view the newer annexe devoted to Donald Campbell and his famous Bluebird K7.   On a scale of 1 to 10 my interest in this was zero but Little Sister kindly took the obligatory “I have been here” photo.

With Coniston Water being such a long lake I can understand why he chose this as the site for his speed record attempts.

By now it was time for lunch and today was a delicious Broccoli and Cheddar soup with homemade bread.  Yummy.     In their cabinet I spied Guinness Cake and so Little Sister consulted the internet and found that the cake recipe does indeed contain the tipple, and I thought the cake looked like a Guinness - dark on the bottom, froth on the top, so we decided to share a slice.   So I think I can now tick another of my boxes, the Sample A Guinness one.   

After buying postcards we again programmed Lady Satnav and set off for Kendal.   All these places sound distant but are actually quite close.  A matter of 30 miles or so on good roads.  At a place called Plantation Bridge, the road changed from a single carriageway to a full dual carriageway much like a New Zealand motorway.  No reason, no warning.  Strange.

Kendal was much larger than we had expected and at this point Lady Satnav failed us and we had to find the parking ourselves.   My! Today wins the prize for narrow parking bays, with almost impossible access but Little Sister is determined to graduate from Master of Car Parking to a full PhD so squeezed the car into the available space.  

We walked down cobbled streets through the town to the old Friends Hall where we able to see The Quaker Tapestry.   They had an excellent audio guide and as we were the only customers we could take our time in viewing the interesting panels.   Commenced in 1981 by a Quaker lady from the south of England these tapestry panels have been an ongoing project involving Embroiderers from all over the world.   The woollen cloth on which they are stitched was specially woven for the project and the lead embroiderer invented a new stitch, now called Quaker Stitch, for the lettering which is consistent across the panels.

I thoroughly enjoyed my day visiting embroideries and then by fortuitous accident Little Sister and stumbled on this…

A fitting end to a great stay in the wonderful Lakes District (although to be fair, Kendal may be Cumbria but it isn’t  in Lakeland).

We had a lovely dinner at Inn on the Square, attended by Dragos, the super friendly waiter and then home to our last night at the delightful Dorchester House.