Wednesday August 5th – It would appear that the Lake District just doesn’t like the Bells. Last time we were here in 1997 it was cold, windy and rainy. This time we have only seen short glimpses of the sun, but at least it isn’t cold and is generally not windy. On Monday we had a restful morning after the busy weekend of wedding and two trips back and forth to Harrogate. We ate lunch in – typical English lunch of sausage rolls, cheese, crackers and fruit – and then did a driving tour around the Lake.

We first headed south to Lakeland where we caught the ferry to Bowness and return. It took about 40 minutes each way. The sun decided to shine on us for the return trip. The scenery is quite spectacular (lots of green hills and big sky) and the houses/estates along the waterfront provide room for imagination to run wild as to who might own ‘that one’! Some are just pretty English cottages while others are very large estates either privately owned or now operated as a hotel.

Yesterday we packed a picnic lunch and headed off to Wray Castle. Built in 1840 as a retirement home for the Dawsons, a Liverpool surgeon and his wealthy heiress wife, it is quite a spectacular building. Part of the National Trust since 1929, it was rented out to the Navy as a signal training centre until 1998. A proposal to develop it as a hotel fell through in the crash of 2011 and a group of locals suggested it be made into a family-friendly tourist attraction. There is some connection with Beatrix Potter and so part of the castle rooms have been converted to include an interactive Peter Rabbit activity centre. Kids can dress up in period costume, plant Peter Rabbit’s garden, watch videos of Peter Rabbit cartoons, etc. In other rooms they’ve installed a pool table, a ping pong table, castle building blocks, pretend stones to build castle walls, and other fun activities. There are graffiti walls in a number of rooms asking for feedback. Outside there is a picnic area with badminton and croquet. It was quite a fun day even though we were too big to participate in many of the activities.

From there we headed off to Sizergh Castle but arrived too late to tour the house. Unfortunately, the times listed in the brochure are incorrect (have been for 2 or 3 years!) so we decided rather than pay to just walk around the garden we’d come back another day. We felt a bit sorry for the lady at the ticket booth since I’m sure we were not the first to point out this discrepancy!

Since it was almost 5pm we decided to just return to Windermere and walk to the local Italian restaurant for dinner. Pizzas were good and salmon fettuccine was also delicious. The evening’s entertainment was watching two shows – one a reality show called Love Your Garden  and the other a BBC documentary about finding the Erebus – the lost ship from the Franklin Expedition – in the Canadian north. It was fun to see CBC personalities speaking on a BBC documentary.

Today (Wednesday) was to be cloudy with sunny periods throughout the day and rain in the morning. They were correct! Our travels today were to Keswick and Cockermouth. It was raining as we passed through Keswick so we decided to carry on and maybe stop on the way back through. A little further on we saw a sign for an ‘Osprey viewing area’. We headed off the highway in search of the osprey. Sure we were lost a number of times, we just kept going and eventually found it. The rain had stopped by this time and the osprey viewing required a hike up a very steep hill, so George and Jenn set off on a hike while I toured the garden at Mirewood across the road. We met up an hour later and enjoyed a picnic lunch followed by warm bumbleberry pie and custard. Love these serendipitous moments!

On we went to Cockermouth to check out William Wordsworth’s childhood home. (Pictures later – internet is causing problems) Much of the home has been restored to the appropriate 1770 period and the audio guide was very informative telling not only about the house itself, but also the family that lived there. Pity, but common in those times, that both parents were dead by the time Wordsworth was 13 and he and his four siblings were separated and sent off to various relatives. It was while touring the walled garden that Jenn and I commented that it was too hot to be wearing our jackets. The sun had come out and it was a lovely summer day all of a sudden.

We headed back to Keswick and wouldn’t you know…it started raining again. It just isn’t going to happen on this trip but there’s always next time!

We’ve passed Pedro’s, a mexican restaurant, a number of times in the past few days and thought we’d stop there for supper, but the wait was over an hour. The alternate plan was to return home and go to The Little Chippy across the road – fish and chips it was. Our entertainment tonight was watching a BBC documentary on how the national postal service is forcing the closure of small town post offices and moving them into larger businesses (such as convenience stores) since they are no longer able to subsidize them. Funny tv here!