Ambleside

Today we woke to rain, but decided to take the bus to Ambleside (don't you just love that name) Ambleside, it even sounds cute and it was a nice little town.  We walked around a bit and I ended up buying a shirt.  It was all Terry's fault as she wanted to go in the store  and look at something she saw in  the window.  I  looked at the shirt and it was soft and warm, so I tried it on and it became mine.  As an added plus it wads up into its own pocket for easy packing.  Also in my defense, I had to throw away one shirt because it had a big ole stain  that wouldn't come out.  Our policy of buy new throw away old came into practice.  As we left the store, I decided it was going to get wet and I was trying to stuff it inside itself to put it in the backpack. Terry of course had to record the episode and some guy standing  outside the store was laughing at my efforts. Never did get it all in the pocket.

As usual for us, we were soon looking for lunch and found a cute little cafe.  Lunch was delicious.  I had an egg mayo sandwich (english egg salad) and being a non hacker, a cafe latte.

  

All the winos in the group had the usual.  Our little waitress was very nice (second from left and the others worked there as well)

and said we should go see The Bridge House and the Church of England, St. Marys, so we trudged off in the rain to find same.  The Bridge House was built in the 1800's by a man who wanted to avoid land taxes, so he built it on a bridge over the water.  It was two rooms, one up and one down and housed his family of EIGHT.  Now this is DOWNSIZING.

The entrance

The fireplace used to be a door out the other side across the river.

The stairs to the upper room were on the outside of the house.  The flower pot is sitting on one step.

We walked on down the street to St. Marys which was a relatively new church built in 1852.  It was lovely and peaceful.

After this we were decidedly soggy, so hopped on the bus and went back to relax by our fireplace and to do laundry before we take off on Friday for Harrogate in Yorkshire.

Keswick

Yesterday we took the #555 bus to Keswick,  We had to wait forever to get the bus and it was the only one to Keswick.

It finally came and off we went.  By the time we got there it was lunch time so we found a place to eat and then went to the "Pencil" Museum which someone we ran into at the Glengorm castle had recommended. 

 It turned out to be pretty interesting.  Who knew how pencil's were made.  The very first graphite ever discovered was in the Seathwaite Valley on th side of a mountain near Keswick about 1500.  

The popular story is that following a very violent storm, the shepherds went out to see their sheep on the mountain side and found several downed trees exposing a large black mass.  Mistaking it for coal, they tried to burn it.   When it wouldn't burn they were at a loss.  Then they discovered it to be excellent for marking sheep.  

The value was quickly realized and the mines were taken over by the government.  

The graphite was transported from Keswick to London and used for medicinal purposes, but most importantly it was used to make molds for cannonballs.   Graphite was so valuable, that much thievery took place and in the first half of the 18th century the theft of graphite was punishable by hard labor or transportation.

The first pencils ever made was in 1558 when Cumberland graphite was discovered.  This one was made for the Queen's Jubilee

Another interesting thing was that during WWII pencils were used to aid downed RAF pilots. Tiny wafer thin maps and compasses were made to hide inside the pencils and given to the pilots to help them escape if they were shot down over Germany.  A chap named Charles Fraser Smith was assigned the job to find and develop various gadgets for WWII spies and he came up with the pencil idea.

Following the pencil museum we decided we better go to the bus stop.  If it took as long to get back to Windermere as it did to get to Keswick, well..... and it did.

Finally got back around 6:00 PM,  So we spent the entire day going to Keswick (pronounced Kessick) to look at pencils. Ha.  Good day though. NO RAIN.

Windermere and Grasmere

The morning started a bit on  the cloudy side and then became sunny and warm. We took a steamer to the south end of the lake and back

A baby owl at the port

and then had lunch.  Terry wanted to go to Grasmere where she and her husband had stayed many years ago to see if she could find the Wordsworth Hotel.  So we hopped a bus to Grasmere. A lady we met said we should get off in Rydal and take the Coffee walk into Grasmere.  She told us that it was a mile to a mile and a half and an easy walk.  As it turns out the easy English walk turned out to have a hill or two in it.  Anyway, I digress.  We decided to do that and got off the bus at Rydal.  We walked up a pretty steep hill to Wordsworth's home and did the tour of the house and gardens.  

Then we went on up to find the COFFEE WALK.  This is it (note the bottom sign)

Ok, we don't have that English accent down yet. Ha

As I said earlier it had a hill or two and one wonders what kind of men carried COFFINS over this trail.  It was a beautiful green walk and I actually broke out into a sweat as we had dressed for the colder weather.

Eventually we found the rock where these hearty "coffin carriers" rested 

and then found our way into town.  We walked through the little town and couldnt find the Wordworth Hotel so we stopped and had a small libation at a cafe.  

As we were walking back to the bus stop, Terry stopped and said there it is.  Right in front of us was The hotel.  

We went in and looked around and it had a lovely outdoor bar area where we wished we had had our drink.  Alas we had to catch our bus back so we moved on.  We did have time to stop and pick up some famous Grasmere Gingerbread.

Her Gingerbread recipe is still made today and it is delicious.  She grew up in a very poor family and worked in a local home in the kitchen, where she invented her gingerbread recipe.  She eventually married and moved to the Lake District where she opened a shop and the rest is history.

It was a neat little town and a good day. NOT ONE SINGLE DROP OF RAIN.