The Lake District

The lashing rain rattled against the window pane; hesitation... procrastination... deliberation...decision...We will still go... loyalty to our leader dictated that we should drive to our B&B in Portinscale in violently inclement weather. A meal with the gang put us all in a better frame of mind; what did it matter if we were plodging through clarts when the company was so good? A thinner Steph and Brendan greeted us at The Mount Bed and Breakfast like long lost friends- which we are!



As it happened we could see Derwentwater as clear as a bell the next morning from our bedroom window. Bootclad and waterproofs at the ready, we strode upward and onward in the Glenderterra valley under Blencathra; we were stripped down to T-shirts by the time we worked our way round to the bench above Keswick at Latrigg. A cuppa, Steph's cookies, a quick read to finish my book and a shower revived us enough that we all made the Derwent Lodge.


The morrow's return of rain deterred a couple from a walk half way up CatBells; they missed lunch beside Sir Hugh Walpole's plaque (from his friend- just one?)amid the broken lights of bracken. H1 sang over DerwentWater opposite the Lodore Falls and above the ferry trundling round the lake.



Peaks drifted with levels of mist which allowed us a ghostly vision of the tops every now and again. Beech leaf litter glowed and squeaked under foot; a 'little gentleman in velvet' pushed his way through the leaf litter on the forest floor. Gold chestnut hands pointed at dirty brown sycamores as though reminding them that they needed to colour up. At the Borrowdale Hotel we timed it perfectly for the open topped bus which disgorged us for coffee at the Theatre on the Lake; a walk in sunshine through Keswick brought us back over the pedestrian bridge (rebuilt after the floods which washed it away) to Portinscale.

There are not enough colours on an artist's palette to describe the patchwork of fields looking from Hartside down over the Eden Vale; fields were picked out by outlines of drystone walls and field boundaries of dark woodland. Roadside verges waved burnished rosebay willow herb's feathery seeds; spruce hung heavy with long, thin cones while yellowing ash trees held on tight to blackening keys. We climbed up between newly flailed roadside hedgerows. Below us a solitary finger of smoke points up to a small chink of blue sky- enough to patch a sailor's trousers.

Now we are up on the rolling harshness of bristling moorland , where snow poles mark your route home and dull-brained pheasants stand jewel bright on top of stonewalls. 'Welcome to Northumberland- England's Border Country' is greeted by Newcastle's loss to Manchester City and commentary on the Ryder Cup. Past Garrigill, over Cupola Bridge, don't stop (as we usually do) for a drink at Langley Castle..... let's just get home.