Sunny Weather

For the first time ever we enjoyed a fortnight of continuous fine weather.  This was very helpful on a walking holiday, but also meant that rest days were few and far between.

We walked ourselves in on Latterbarrow and Hawkshead Moor, both walks that could be accessed from the house.

This antique piece of farm machinery is a cutter-bar, once in annual use on my parents' farm to mow the hay grass.  Mowing was followed by days, if not weeks, of turning the swathes, rowing them up. piling the dried grass into pikes in the field and then leading the pikes in to the barn with a pike-lifter.  Even then, each forkful had to be hefted by hand up on to the mows.  Hundreds of hours of back-breaking manual labour.

So, on the third day we set out for Claife Heights and the Sawreys, home of Beatrix Potter.  This was woodland walking leading out to views over Windermere.

On the path, playing dead and looking like an old twig, this slow-worm.

The views eventually opened out to reveal Windermere and Bowness, across the lake.

We felt pleased to be isolated from the crowds and noise of those streets.

Lush country led down into Far Sawrey and we followed the path to Near Sawrey, where the Potter industry was in full swing.  Timed tickets were needed to access Hill Top and people had clearly come from across the world to visit.  We had already decided to take a short-cut up the road to Hawkshead, but then we noticed that enticing thing, a bus stop.  A bus was due within the next ten minutes and we very much enjoyed the views of Esthwaite from the bus window

Hawkshead

When people ask where we are going on holiday the answer is, as usual, Cumbria.  I realise that this does sound a bit unimaginative.  But the whole thing takes on a different perspective when walking is the main activity.  Between five and ten miles is our limit for the day, so there are many areas of Cumbria yet to be explored at this rate.

Hawkshead is a small town in what used to be Westmorland - at least it was regarded as "Town" as opposed to "Country" by Beatrix Potter, whose territory this is.  It was a short hike across the fields from our holiday cottage, The Cragg.  Now, it is a bit of a tourist trap, but still has some its historic buildings, and, just as important, its teashops.

This is the school attended by William Wordsworth in the late eighteenth century.

And this is The Cragg, a traditional Westmorland farmhouse with stone flagged floors, an Aga and extensive woodland gardens full of rhododendrons, azaleas and birdsong.  It always amazes me that properties like this can be rented for relatively modest sums.  Or you could stay in a Holiday Inn.

We spent many hours enjoying the sunshine in the garden, watching the relentless labours of a group of long-tailed tits who had a nest in a dense bush.  We saw three individuals sharing the task of feeding the young.

All through the property were original features:

This is Westmorland panelling, used for interior walls.  The thin planks are simply slotted into the ceiling beams and there is your wall.

Built in cupboards... Of course you need exterior walls two foot thick to accommodate these.

Spice cupboards, this one dated 1695.

Early walks took us out across the fields surrounding Hawkshead.  Another distinctive local feature is the use of slabs of slate to construct walls, rather than the drystone typical of elsewhere in Cumbria.

This is rolling lowland farm country, heavily wooded.

 

And it was bluebell time, of which more - much more - later.