Monday April 29, 2024

Home and so happy to have made this trip!!!

Sunday April 28, 2024

Took three different buses to get to Glasgow today. Quite a long trip! The first bus was fun to see our last scenery of the Lake District. The other trips were a bit long and it was still cold (all the buses due to a train strike) but we made it to Glasgow! Checked into our modern hotel and were glad to be back in the real-world comfort. I walked to Waterstones and then met Mary for her last day surprise. I had made a reservation at the Willow Tea rooms to surprise her on our last day. The high tea was a great way to end a great trip.

What Meringues!

Saturday April 27, 2024

We had a nice breakfast at our hotel. We were lucky to have all the great breakfasts and coffer and headed to the Keswick ferry to be transferred across the lake to the Catbells hike. We decided not do it as there were so many people and the accumulation of our other hikes had hit, so we took our time (even saw a pheasant!) and walked a bit where the boat dropped us off. We then got the ferry and it took us all over Derwent Water. What a fun time! We took wonderful pictures of Catbells and scenery and the spent the day in Keswick at the bookstore and other shops. We ate at another great pub where we had great lasagna and wine. We both enjoyed Keswick!

Friday April 26, 2024

Heidi’s served another great breakfast. Time seemed to be going very fast. A very nice taxi driver drove us and our luggage to Keswick where we walked to Walla Crag,. This was not as easy a hike, but probably my favorite. You could see for miles around the Lake District. It was a walk and view I will never forget. Derwent Water was the beautiful lake we could see and we both understood why this was such a popular hike. On the way back to Keswick (a much larger town than Ambleside or Grasmere) was Ashness Bridge, popular for pictures. We got back to Keswick and checked into Keswick Park Hotel and went for dinner at a pub called the Weatherspoon. We were both starving! We split a fish and chips and had cider and beer. Oh I love England!

Thursday April 25, 2024

We were tired so today after our breakfast we took our own walk, not the scheduled walk. We took a walk to Silver Howe a lovely walk form Grasmere. The scenery was spectacular and we both loved the day. I did fall into wet water however, which we had a lot of laughs and dried my socks on our walking sticks! Quite a picture but I carried on, even with my feet not being happy. By this time, I had put some blister stuff on my feet and was doing fine, but feet sure take a beating on such a trip. We then rested, read, and went to a fabulous dinner at Tweedies, where we had great food and a wonderful toffee pudding cake. It seemed we devoured food whenever we ate, but I think it was all the hiking!

Wednesday, April 24, 2024

We were a bit sore from the first hike but ate another wonderful breakfast, checked out of our room and began our hike to Grasmere. We passed through Rydal Park and Rydal Mount, where Wordsworth spent his last days. It was a beautiful home and we then hiked the Coffin Road named for the fact that it was an old corpse road used in medieval times to carry the deceased to their final resting place, in Grasmere. The trail took us through beautiful scenery until we arrived at Dove Cottage, Wordsworth’s family home. A movie was being filmed and they nastily informed us to get out of the way! They would not tell us what it was but told us it would be on Netflix in 2025 and to watch for it. Hmm?  We had a minute in the store and then walked on to Grasmere itself,  a charming town. We had wonderful tea and scones for our lunch. Mary was introduced to clotted crème and now is a fellow clotted crème lover! Biggest scone I had ever eaten! We went to the Wordsworth Daffodil Garden which was so pretty, due to the time of year. We enjoyed some famous Grasmere gingerbread. It was so nice to travel in the spring and see the lambs and flowers but it was cold. We shopped at a bookstore and others and then feeling pooped, we walked to our b and b, Heidi’s Grasmere Lodge, where our bags were waiting. Although we originally checked in to the wrong room, we did eventually get the right room and although a bit kitschy, it was very cute. And as long as we had a warm bed, we were happy. Actually cleaned up to real clothes and went to another pub, of course, The 1769, near our b and b. Another great meal and beer and we met Charlie, a westie we both loved.

*Dove Cottage is a house on the edge of Grasmere in the Lake District of England. It is best known as the home of the poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy Wordsworth from December 1799 to May 1808, where they spent over eight years of "plain living, but high thinking". During this period, William wrote much of the poetry for which he is remembered today, including his "Ode: Intimations of Immortality", "Ode to Duty", "My Heart Leaps Up" and "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", together with parts of his autobiographical epic, The Prelude.^[1]

William Wordsworth married his wife Mary in 1802, and she and her sister joined the Wordsworths at Dove Cottage. The family quickly expanded, with the arrival of three children in four years, and the Wordsworths left Dove Cottage in 1808 to seek larger lodgings.