The Lakes, Days 10 and 11.

 We spent Wednesday 9th visiting friends and exploring Kendal. An excellent day.

Thursday was another bus day, this time to Grasmere. On arrival we enjoyed coffee and cake in the Heaton Cooper Studio before launching off to Easedale Tarn. The weather was perfect and it was good to reminisce as we passed the Quaker Guest House where I had stayed whilst at school many years ago. We quickly reached the steep part of Sourmilk Ghyll with plenty of stops for photography. The climb went quickly and it wasn't long before we pulled up to the tarn. This is a popular spot for wild swimming but it looked cold today. Deciding to pass on the swimming as I had left my wet suit behind (!) we made do with lunch, finishing off last year's Christmas cake. Crossing the beck we descended into Far Easedale and made our way back by Easedale Ghyll along a superb greenlane. This was the route Thomas and I took on mountain bikes when we rode Wainwright's Coast to Coast, 16 years ago now! Green lanes like this fascinate me: who has walked them in the past; do they hold memories of those who have gone before; was it an old packhorse route?

In the perfect weather the autumn colours were beginning to come into their own now. Once back in Grasmere we again dallied in shops and cafe before catching the bus home, returning at 6.30. Once more it was comforting and cosy wandering down the lane at dusk with lights on the site beginning to shine out. The bar, of course, was too tempting to resist.

Lake District, April 2024. Day 6, Success in Kendal

A throughly wet day today from the start. Having googled Abbot Hall Gallery to check that it was open we headed off into Kendal. The gallery was, indeed, open but the cafe was not! We throughly enjoyed the exhibitions, but couldn't see much evidence of refurbishment that required three or four years of closure. The cafe being closed we managed to get into the excellent Farrer's in Kendal for lunch before returning to the site and again battening down for another wet afternoon.

Lake District, April 2024. Day 5, The Search for Gas.

Another unsettled wet and windy day. We were in need of gas and, having already failed at three calor gas stations to replace our empty cylinder we were becoming a tad twitchy. Having googled calor suppliers, we rang Kendal Caravans who had three full cylinders and a quick trip up the A6 thankfully secured us one. The plan now was to visit Abbot Hall Gallery, only to find that it was closed on a Monday and Tuesday. Frustrated we continued on to B&Q to replace a rubber mat which had gone missing and also to Asda to do some shopping. We then decided to visit Low Sizergh Barn farm shop and cafe for lunch. Then it was back home and batten down for the next session of gales that began to blow through in the afternoon. I went for a run and Heather for a walk. We both enjoyed looking out for examples of Atlantic Temperate Rainforest in Rather Heath Plantation. There are many examples: the walls are richly covered in a carpet of mosses and several trees have a flora of epihytes. We concluded our day with a meal at the Whistling Pig. For a poor day of weather we felt satisfied to have achieved a fair amount.

Photos taken on Ashes Lane