Bee in my Bonnet

An early morning departure for the Lake District on the west of England. We are headed specifically for Lake Windermere. As we travel I am still amazed at the lushness of the countryside. Sill lots of pastures of sheep but more deciduous trees.

We arrived at a beautiful calm Windermere Lake. Did you know around here the name of the lake or river comes first then the designation of Lake or river.

Windermere Lake is where the Victorian wealthy came to vacation and build huge homes mostly from native stone. The homes are mainly hotels now days.

We boarded our boat for a short trip down the lake to Ambleside. Beautiful.

Next stop, Grasmere. Resting place of William Wordsworth and famous delicious sweet gingerbread.

William Wordsworth is a well known poet and author. He is buried in Grasmere along with many family members.

This is also the place for the famous gingerbread made in a very small quaint little shop just around the bend from the church. We could smell the fresh gingerbread smell wafting across the graveyard.

We had a delightful lunch of crepes at a cute little shop. We had fun wandering the little village.

After debarking several of our tour people were talking about how Beatrix Potter, the author and illustrator of the Peter Rabbit books, lived near here. Our very gracious tour guides and bus drivers decided to give it a go and see how close we could get to her home. Not all the way to her home because the roads are too tiny and our buses to big. So, off we ambled towards the little village of Hawkshead.

The roads to Hawkshead are very narrow, only one car wide by American standards there were many times the buses had to pull as close to the edge of the road as possible and then inch their way past a car or lorrie. It was a bit frightening and certainly adventurous. Most of the homes along they way were built from dark stone as were the stacked stone walls around the fields. We finally made it up the tree shaded, bramble-bushed, fern-y road. Yay for the bus drivers!!

Hawkshead has the Grammar school where William Wordsworth went to school and a lovely church up on the hill overlooking the white washed or stone homes and shops of the village.

As we ambled down from the hill into the crooked cobbled streets we finally found the little shop of Beatrix Potter’s husband. It is now a little museum. The shop is two levels high. Not really stories high as we would think of it. The doorways are small and low. The ceilings are very low. The only light comes from the few windows in front. The low ceilings are large dark hewn beams. Plastered walls are very out of square. The stairwell is very narrow and wonky. The small museum has on display maybe 30 pieces of her original water colors of a variety of little critters from her children’s books.

If you look really close you will see the shop owner smiling at the door.