Snapshots of Lake Windermere

The green hills that rise above

Lake Windermere

(the largest lake in England)

are still the dominion of Beatrix Potter --

the woman who helped immortalize

a particular kind of English cosiness:

of vegetable patches and garden gates

rocking chairs by the fire

and cambric tea.

Here is the garden path

that Tom Kitten tripped down.

He, and all of the other pastel products

of Beatrix Potter's imagination,

are part of Hill Top.

The popularity of those tiny tales

gave Beatrix Potter the income

to buy a house of her own.

At the age of 41,

she was finally able to break free

of the Victorian vise

of her parents' care.

Photography isn't allowed in the dim,

interior still-life of Hilltop.

This group of Japanese tourists

wielded umbrellas, not cameras.

Hilltop is like a grown-up doll's house,

furnished for one person's taste and comfort.

It has a treasure room

and dolls who were born two centuries ago.

Completely unchanged,

it feels like a place preserved

by a sleeping beauty spell. . .

if only someone would just light the fire

and put the kettle on.

The books mirror the house:

Here is the spinning wheel,

the wooden dresser full of china,

the open fire,

the flagstone floor,

the gleaming grandfather clock

and the thick oriental carpet.

Eventually, Beatrix Potter

owned 4000 acres of land

in the Lake District.

Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddleduck

were supplanted

by her interest in real animals,

particularly Herdwick sheep.

She left the land and the herds of sheep

to the National Trust.

Perhaps this solitary ewe,

grazing near the house,

is an heir

of one of her prize-winners.

After her father died,

Beatrix Potter bought her mother a house

in nearby Bowness.

(Today, Bowness is the home

of The World of Beatrix Potter

and a dozen sweet shops.)

Mother and daughter were separated

by Lake Windermere and the hills

that rose above it;

close, but not too close.

You can drive around the lake,

but it's faster to take the ferry

or perhaps one of these little red boats

across the water.

The fog followed us

as we walked around the lake.

Not a good day for sailing . . .

the boats looked like toys

abandoned in a bathtub.

If the day is too damp

for walking,

you can just admire the view

from the Old England Hotel.

The tea is served in silver pots,

with a salver of shortbread.

Snapshots of Grasmere

Even in August, the Lake District is smothered in clouds.

It rained; we got wet; we stopped for a nice cuppa.

I know that those beautiful green hills

draw legions of walkers

But for me, this was the quintessence

of our visit to Grasmere.

Apparently, Dorothy Wordsworth managed to spend

24 pounds on tea in one year.

The rent on Dove Cottage was only 8 pounds,

just to put it into perspective.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

is on every menu.

Do try it if you get the chance.

For such a tiny village, there is a

dense concentration of cafes and tea-shops.

There is plenty of daffodil kitsch, too.

You can try to "wander lonely as a cloud"

around Grasmere,

but I doubt you will manage it.

Dove Cottage

was once a public house.

Perhaps the conviviality lived on

in the walls and slate floor and buttery?

I wonder what Dorothy and William drank

with their many illustrious guests:

Coleridge (who lived with them, off and on)

and Walter Scott and Robert Southey

and Charles and Mary Lamb (another famous sister)

and Thomas De Quincey, the infamous opium-eater

who later took over the lease.

So much poetry in those walls,

but no desk.

William Wordsworth wrote in a cutlass chair,

so-called because you could sit in it

without removing your sword.

I'm fairly sure

despite his Revolutionary and Romantic reputation

he subscribed to the

"pen is mightier than the sword" philosophy.

Anyway, his sister tended to act

as his amanuensis.

The house was incredibly dark

with a coal-burning stove

and not much ventilation.

No wonder the Wordsworths

spent most of their time

in Nature.

Dove Cottage was "acquired for the nation" in 1890.

(Wordsworth's Lakeland.)

Such a plain gravestone for Dorothy.

Ernest de Selincourt described her literary contributions:

"probably the most remarkable and the most distinguished

of English prose writers

who never wrote a line for the general public."

Her Grasmere Journals,

just four small notebooks,

were written for William's pleasure.

Her observances inspired some of his

most memorable poems.

I tried to read The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth

while we were in Grasmere,

but I kept getting distracted by other things,

like The Lives of the English Rakes,

found in a bookshop in Bowness.

Gray and green

are the colours of Grasmere.

If we had stayed longer,

I might have grown a layer of moss, too.

This pond is just outside of Grasmere

in some woods familiar to William and Dorothy.

William liked to declaim as he walked,

and Dorothy collected his words like

so many drops of rain.

I tried to get Sigmund to compose some poetry

on the spot

but he declined.

He still feels bitter about studying

The Prelude when he was a schoolboy.

This is the most charming

of the many, many sheep pictures

that I felt compelled to snap.

Sheep are a common sight in the Lake District.

Although the Wordsworth industry dominates Grasmere

it isn't terribly touristy.

This circus tent was an incongruous sight.