We had been looking forward to this week for ages and finally it was here. Rebecca and Nylan's wedding combined with a few days off for a bit of R and R after so much cleaning, packing and organising. Reuben arrived on Tuesday afternoon and Harry took the afternoon off to show him the sights of Bristol (harbour, Clifton Suspension Bridge, Cabot Tower etc) and on Wednesday off we drove to the Lake District. It is a good distance away - about 5 hours with most of it motorway. As we got closer we detoured to take in some of the Lake District sights of Windermere and Ambleside (we did want to return there during the weekend but alas there was another airshow on - too much traffic - and yes Harry did decide a walk would be more fun than a country air show - no twisting of arms required!!) With a stop for an ice cream and to buy some of Sarah Nelsons gingerbread at Grasmere we explored the little town with many other tourists. It has a bit of a ski resort feel. But more about Sarah Nelson who made this gingerbread that Harry couldn't stop raving about (and may have trouble sharing). She was born in 1815 into a impoverished family with no Dad. At an early age she was put into service and became a cook and even after marriage and two kids she continued to wash and cook for the gentry in the area. When she was in her mid forties the family moved to ‘Gate Cottage’ (previously the village school where boys were sent to school for a penny a day but once education became compulsory in the 1600's the cottage was too small). Sarah began to make gingerbread under the eagle eye of a French chef. Tourists during this victorian age walked past, smelt it, saw Sarah in a white apron and saw her sitting out in her little yard selling the biscuit. Sarah became the ‘Baker and Confectioner of Church Cottage, Grasmere’. After her death the recipe passed to her great niece who sold it and soon this closely guarded secret was sold on to someone else. Apparently, over the years little has changed in this tiny shop - the school coat pegs are still in place, and so is the cupboard used to house the school slates. Just past the shop and around through the garden is a little church and cemetery. We wandered into the church which had a floor covered in rushes (its rushbearing season) which gave it an earthy and homely atmosphere. I didn't know anything about this custom - it is centuries old. Rushes are used to cover the floor and a festival is held around rush carts. There was rivalry between the supporters and builders of different carts which was often accompanied by brawls and drunken behaviour. The puritanical church people didn't like this and refused the rushbearers to be allowed into the churches which of course caused friction in the church...and on it goes. Along the path is a little garden and cemetery where William Wordsworth and many of his family are buried. He was born not far away in Cockermouth and spent most of his life in the Lake District. One of his wellknown poems was inspired by a walk in the district "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" in 1804. He and his sister walked around the woods and "When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park, we saw a few daffodils close to the water side. We fancied that the lake had floated the seed ashore and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as we went along there were more and more and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever dancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little knot and a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway. We rested again and again. The Bays were stormy, and we heard the waves at different distances and in the middle of the water like the sea.
— Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere Journal , Thursday, 15 April 1802
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
and twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
in such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thoughtwhat wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
It is summer and the daffodils are over but we can imagine what a picture brother and sister saw.
Onwards and upwards we drove to Lodore Falls. How lost we were as there was no cell phone reception!! No one else had arrived so we checked Reuben in and went to find our bed and breakfast - a nice homely place for our next four nights. Good morning serviettes, a smiling host, nice and clean room - what more could we want!! We caught up later over dinner at a local pub and met some of the other wedding guests.
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