In Search of Waterfalls and Peter Rabbit

I wrote this in January, but haven’t been able to finalise it, until now.

It’s taken so long to sit down and write this blog. A combination of full time work, and several bereavements, one no other than my beloved Riley has slowed me down somewhat.

Then I got covid for Christmas (after many years of dodging it). It’s only now that I am able to sit down and write about my last trip to the Lake District of 2022.

It was the middle of November, the weather had been unseasonably mild. Come our week off work, a squally weather front of rain and wind drew near. I think we were quite lucky as we managed to swim in between rain showers. Our trip began on a Tuesday, which happened to be the best day. We drove up towards Rydal Hall and parked up outside St Mary’s Church which asks for a £2 donation which we readily gave. We then walked through the gardens of Rydal Hall and on towards the fells towards Buckstones Jum (Jump).

It took us about one hour to get to Buckstones Jum. We walked through woodland where there were lots of waterfalls and then there was a lot of mud involved before we arrived at the shores of this waterfall in Rydal Beck. On the shingle beach we made camp and had a bite to eat before I intrepidly headed into the water.

There wasn’t many people about but at the time of my swim, there was a young couple with a dog watching from the rocks above Buckstones Jum. Feeling rather self-conscious and knowing I wouldn’t be doing much swimming in this little churning pool I waded in and got into deep water pretty quick. The water quality was clear and I managed to do a few strokes.

I swam/floated for about 10 minutes until I decided it was enough. I got out and before I got dressed I went fishing for the couples’ dog’s ball that was left in the shallows of the water. I found it and threw it for the dog. Hopefully he never lost it on the way back down.

After getting dressed, we took the trail back through the woods towards the car. We then headed towards Keswick and Braithwaite and Hermiston. Always our home from home.

The next day we had a rather fractured day of sightseeing. We did a bit of retail therapy before we headed off into the fells. The rain was incessant until we got to the shores of Yew Tree Tarn. However I was not feeling a swim so we decided to drive onwards towards Blea Tarn (Langdale).

Blea Tarn with Rainbow

We had lunch overlooking Blea Tarn however the ticket machine was not accepting coins, because we didn’t want a parking ticket we headed on towards Grasmere.

Surely, we would get in a swim?

We ended up at the car park of White Moss again. So this time we headed towards the shores of Grasmere. I had been here before with Riley in 2018

So, David and I made camp and I took to the water with the weather changing minute by minute.

I spent about 15 minutes in 10 degrees water. After I’d grew bored I got out and dried. We headed back towards the car and our home for the night, Hermiston.

On the last day of our visit to the Lake District, we headed towards Moss Eccles Tarn, west of Windermere, not far from Hill Top.

I had reservations for this swim as the last time I was in the area, I got shouted out to get out of the water at Esthwaite Water. This time, however we were not obstructed and we walked 30 minutes passed farms towards the tarn. The weather was not in our favour as the grey clouds descended and the wind grew.

I was relieved when the tarn appeared as I just wanted to bag this tarn. The wind was freezing and rain clouds threatened. We quickly made camp and I entered the water. I couldn’t see how Beatrix Potter loved this area of Lakeland so much. In better weather I suppose it would be idyllic. I swam for about 10 minutes before the wind got stronger and as we walked back to the car the rain fell in buckets. Again we were lucky to dodge the worst of the weather.

Though the weather was changeable we manged to do two new swims. Two new swims to add to the swim map.

Were will my swims in 2023 take me?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

Plan B!

For our most recent visit to the Lake District I had planned Wainwright walks and double lake swims. However, in reality not all plans came to fruition, but that was ok. While we were out and about in the Cumbrian hills we tweaked our plans and covered as much as we could, with the time that we had. This was no more truer than our last day in the Lakes, when instead of driving straight from our base, Hermiston Guest House to Buttermere, we lingered a while in Keswick.

Derwent Water

Morning in Braithwaite dawned bright and crisp, a perfect autumn day. While having breakfast, we watched as clouds from the mountains drifted down to the lower valleys and lakes. We left the B&B shrouded in mist hopeful of seeing some cloud inversion over Derwent Water. Unfortunately we arrived a little too late and only captured the fierce sun burning the remaining cloud away.

Boats at Derwent Water

Mist at Derwent Water

Depending whether you are brave enough to face the Honister Pass or not, Buttermere is some 30-40 minutes drive from Keswick. We arrived at Buttermere around lunchtime and had difficulty in finding parking. Both National Trust car-parks were full, (due to it being a beautiful day and the Half Term holidays). Thankfully we managed to find a lay-by beside Crummock Water, though being a good 20 minute walk to the lake of Buttermere.

Plan A: I had prepared a one mile walk from Buttermere to Bleaberry Tarn via Burtness Wood, where I would take my 10th swim of the year. However we arrived at the lakeside of Buttermere around 12.30pm and with the best of the day behind us. I decided to deviate from the plan.

Plan B: To take a walk to a sheltered beach around Buttermere (eastern side), and from there embark on a swim, before lunch. I wanted to savour the sunshine as my last swim in Buttermere was cold and dreary. We passed the lone tree and as the path alongside the lake became broken with fallen trees and boggy with mud, we found a wide shingle beach with unparalleled views of Fleetwith Pike and Haystacks.

Buttermere Lone Tree

Buttermere swim

David had his lunch, while I stripped to my tankini and waded into the water. The water was warmer than Small Water the previous day. Terence clocked 12°C, but in the sunshine it felt much warmer, deceivably so.

I swam back and forth along the bank for about 20 minutes, my longest swim this year! At one point I had an audience, and another time a woman asked me what the water temperature was like! I don’t wild swim for the spectacle it creates. I do it to feel closer to nature, to the environment. Since the dawn of indoor swimming pools, wild swimming has took a step back in the nations’ psyche, but hopefully with its recent resurgence, less people will be shocked at seeing someone swimming in a lake!

Buttermere swim

Back on land, struggling to get dry and warm, I experienced one of the worst shiver attacks I have had while wild swimming. I should have known from my Wast Water swim that being in cold water for over 15 minutes tends to affect me more, more so in autumnal temperatures! This blog post from Open Water Woman is very enlightening about the affects of cold water swimming on the body and resultant hypothermia if not adequately monitored.

Buttermere maybe my 10th and final swim of this season. If so, I have certainly ended on a high! My final swim of 2017, in one of my favourite lakes. I couldn’t have planned it any better. Sometimes plans are not meant to be followed.

Have you visited Butteremere? Been convinced to try wild swimming? Let me know your thoughts!

Thanks so much for reading,

Christine x

Sunday Sevens #38

This week’s Sunday Sevens, (devised by Natalie at Threads and bobbins), comes mostly from the Lake District where I’ve had a wonderful few days away with David.

B&B: Yet again we stayed at Hermiston Guesthouse in Braithwaite for our two night stay. We were given the very comfortable Latrigg double room!

Latrigg room

Birthday Treat

Birthday: This third ‘Lakes holiday’ of 2017 was a birthday treat. Phil and Helen, the proprietors of the guest house, gifted me a bottle of bucks fizz to celebrate!

Wild Swimming: Of course I planned some wild swims alongside our many walks. I spent a wonderful impromptu 20 minute swim at Buttermere! The water temperature was about 12° but in the sunshine it felt much warmer. However the shakes on shore afterwards were some of the worst I’ve experienced. It was hard to drink my hot cup of coffee!

Buttermere

#walk1000miles: Even though I have completed the walk 1000 miles challenge, I am still counting my mileage. David and I walked a good seven miles around Haweswater where there are gates made for giants!

Giant gate!

#walk1000miles Medal

On returning home, among the post was my completers medal! Yay!! 😀

Derwent Water: Of course no visit to Keswick would have been complete without visiting the shores of Derwent Water. I think this picture of the Borrowdale end of the lake is among the best I’ve taken.

Derwent Water

Tux: Unfortunately on our arrival home, we were dismayed to have had yet another death in the aviary. Poor Tux, who was our eldest owl finch, was found at the bottom of the cage. We have buried her in the yarden with her partner Troy (who died earlier this year).

Tux

Birthday Flowers

I’ll finish this post with a photo of the beautiful flowers David bought me for my birthday!

That was my week, how was yours?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

 

Catch-up!

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post, so here’s a little catch-up!

Being Lucky!

In July to mark their new season, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra held a week long competition on their Facebook page! I was lucky enough to be chosen for their Thursday competition!! The prize was for two tickets to see Psycho with music performed by the Philharmonic, (ideally on my birthday!), and also two tickets on-board the Ghost Bus run by Shiverpool tours! I have done many ghost walks while holidaying in Edinburgh but not in my own city. So I am very excited to see what the bus tour has to offer! 😀

Culture and Sightseeing!

During one Saturday, David and I took a short visit to Birmingham to see their street art of Owls. The Big Hoot it was called! In total we spotted 33 of the 89 owls on the streets, not bad for a few hours on the trail!

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While walking around the city, we enjoyed the many different types of architecture to be found!

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Last Thursday came the news I had been hoping for, for so long! The Tower of London Poppies were finally embarking on their UK tour! It was beyond my wildest dreams that Liverpool could be one of the first few to be chosen for this unique art installation but that is what exactly happened!

The instillation of Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red by Paul Cummins Ceramics Limited, that was first seen at the Tower of London in 2014, captured the imagination of the nation! The Weeping Window will be coming to Liverpool’s St George’s Hall in November 2015 to January 2016 and the second part of the installation, The Wave will be housed at Yorkshire Sculpture Park this coming September to January 2016! I hope to get the opportunity to photograph both! You cannot imagine how excited I am at seeing them! 😀

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Wildlife:

Last week, our house was a B&B for a poorly pigeon whom we called Jack! David noticed the lethargic bird last Monday and after debate we made a box up for him (and later a cage) and brought him in of a night. He seemed generally fit, apart from green runny poop! The worrying thing was that he could not fly and even though he attempted too, he could not get any height! So for seven days we would leave him out in the garden for the day (Artie was not allowed to go outside!), and of a night he resided in our back bedroom!

Jack the pigeon

We were going to take him to a vets to get checked out but over the weekend he seemed to be getting more strength and confidence.

This Monday while filling up the bird feeders, (we have many Goldfinch and House Sparrow fledglings visiting), Jack took to the air and landed on a nearby shed roof. He was not to be seen come the evening and we hoped that he had found his strength and flown off with some newly made friends!

On Tuesday morning we saw Jack back in the garden, this time eating seed that had fallen from the feeders and integrating with a small flock of fellow pigeons! We hope he continues to visit the garden and hopefully Jack’s story has a happy ending.

The Garden:

At the weekend David and I spent six hours in the garden cleaning, re-potting and planting. I bought a Dahlia from Grosvenor Garden Centre, Chester. I fell in love with the black foliage and the flower heads attract bees! I also bought an Anemone to replace my blighted Michaelmas Daisy and some wall art!

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And finally I’ll end with one last picture. After two months growing from seed, my Borage has finally flowered!

Borage flower

What events are you looking forward to seeing?

Christine x

Operation Kelpie, with a Few Dolphins, Two Bridges and an Abbey thrown in for Good Measure…

… are what made our weekend away to Scotland 2014 memorable!

With having no internet connection in the three B&B/hotels we stayed in I am having to update when back at home. Over the three nights/four days we saw a lot of sights, drove for 17 hours and ranked up a total of over 800 miles! There are a lot of pictures to go through, and I mean a lot!!!

In this post I will try and cover all the highlights with a selection of pictures I have not shared on my Facebook page. I hope you enjoy reading as much as we enjoyed visiting some wonderful sights in the East of Scotland.

Our holiday started on the Thursday when David and I drove up to Falkirk from Liverpool. The four hour journey went without a hitch and the weather stayed dry, if not cloudy once crossed the boarder.We had lunch at the Helix with the Kelpies in the distance. We had a tour booked for 2.30pm!

Our tour guide was Andy and he was informative if not flamboyant! He really entertained David and I and the other six people on the tour! The tour was £5 each and lasted one hour which I thought was value for money! The tour explained the history behind the development of Helix and the Kelpies and then went on to explain about the past, of the areas industrial roots and the canals. The tour ended inside the base of one of the Kelpies, Duke I think it was. After the tour we spent another hour walking around and taking pictures from different angles. The sun broke through the clouds and we got some great pictures!

 

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After four we drove to our B&B in Stirling, West Plean. It was our third time of staying there and the welcome is always friendly.

West Plean B&B

We dinned at the River House, and afterwards we decided to go back to the Kelpies to see them lit up at night. It took over an hour for the sun to set but we got some fantastic pictures of the Kelpies lit up with red lights. To me they looked demonic!

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The Friday dawned with mist over Stirling. We shared a lovely friendly breakfast with a French couple from Paris and a German couple from Berlin. As Moira the proprietor of West Plean said, it was an international breakfast table!

After breakfast David and I left for Aberdeen. We came across cloud and more cloud before it turned to sharp piercing rain. We stopped for lunch at Dunnottar Castle and we’re going to visit, but we had good views of the mist shrouded castle from the headland so we snapped a few pictures and then went on our way!

Dunnottar Castle

We arrived in a rain soaked Aberdeen after 1.30pm and quickly went in search of Marischal College where the 50 dolphins of the Wild Dolphins art exhibition where housed before auction. They were displayed in an open courtyard and David and I were not protected from the ‘dreich’ weather!

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After 4pm we checked into our second base for the night, the Hilton, Treetops Hotel. It was a four star hotel but we were in a three star room! The other downside was that we were staying next to a ‘bride to be’ and she and her friends kept us up during the night with their antics!

The only positive of the stay was the restaurant. After nursing a migraine and not having brought any medication (the only thing I did not have) we went for dinner. After ordering the salmon, we were then entertained while waiting by a magician called Garry and his pet rabbit Basil! It was amusing and highly different! David had a smile on his face all evening!

Garry the Magician with Basil

Saturday dawned much brighter with the sun shining, my headache and sickness lifted. We did not pay for the £10 each for breakfast, we decided to just have a coffee and head off to Edinburgh. We were planning on visiting Highland Wildlife Park but the satnav said a three hour drive awaited us and then another 2.5 hours to Queensferry, so we opted to visit my favourite city instead. We stayed in Edinburgh for lunch and walked around Calton Hill, Holyrood Park and the Royal Mile. It was nice visiting old haunts.

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After 3pm we set off to our last base for the holiday.

Hawes Inn

We checked into the Hawes Inn, a pub on the river front. It was a three star and the room we were in was testament to that. We were in an outhouse, and in the basement as that, hence no internet signal! It was not the best B&B we have stayed in, but it was liveable! We were not there much of the time anyway!

After check in, we decided to mingle with the locals who were there for a food and drink festival. We took pictures of the two bridges and looked for restaurants. In the end we had a delightful curry at an Indian called the Queen’s Spice. At the end of the meal I was gifted a red rose, a nice touch!

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On leaving the restaurant and after I took a tumble, (silly high heeled shoes!) we rushed back to the hotel and then out again to see the sunset over the Firth. (Don’t worry I did not break any bones, just had a scraped knee.)

The Forth Bridge

Later on that evening we headed back out (again) to see the bridges lit up with lights.

The Forth Bridges

The Sunday saw us getting up at 8am for a continental breakfast. We left Queensferry on our journey south. I with a tear in my eye said a farewell to Edinburgh and Arthur’s Seat as we saw it fading into the distance as we dove along the A7! We headed to Melrose Abbey for two hours of strolling around ruins. It was a pleasant, peaceful day!

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We got back to Liverpool after 4pm on Sunday, tired but satisfied that we had had a nice, diverse time.

I hope you have enjoyed my recital of our little weekend and inspired you to visit Scotland?! I will try and make a video of the highlights and post on here.

Christine x

The stare of the Leopard.

Day Three:

Sunday was a much more relaxed kind of day. After getting up too early on a Sunday morning (7.30) for 8am breakfast which was nice, granola and coffee. David and I headed to Banham Zoo only 30 minutes drive from the B&B. We arrived at 10am and spent the next five hours there, walking the pathways looking at the Amur Tiger, Sri Lankan Leopard, Red Panda and taking in yet another flying display! The highlight of the day was catching a Mongoose with its baby! So cute!

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After 3pm we left the zoo, I with two cuddly Red Pandas in tow. 🙂

For the evening meal we went to a local pub, Brewers fayre, which was like a Wetherspoon’s to me. The place was buzzing with people enjoying the carvery and kids screaming!! What joy!! David had yet another curry while I after requesting a vegetable lasagna ended up happy with a chilli bean and rice, my favourite! Nice! 😀 We even had dessert of chocolate and strawberry sundaes 🙂 You can imagine which one David had? 🙂

Now after 10pm, we are relaxing with cups of tea after a nice bath. We are getting ready for bed… sleep tight.

Very Distracted!

I don’t know what’s up with me today but I can’t seem to be able to concentrate or motivate myself! I must be thankful for being half packed for my much needed weekend away to the East coast of England starting this Friday!!

Last year I had booked a five day holiday to Norfolk but with my father’s sudden illness and then subsequent passing meant I had to cancel. 😦 This year I had already booked a one nights stay in a farmhouse not far from Colchester as I intend to visit the ‘Stand Tall‘ exhibition of painted giraffes at the zoo. With my boss at the Royal Liverpool Hospital being on holiday for two weeks I decided to try and extend the one nights stay to three!!

I managed to get my own way, and booked another two nights this time in a B&B not far from Norwich, Norfolk. I will get there eventually! I intend to visit Banham Zoo to see their collection, as well as their Red Panda pair but then I don’t know what else to do. Go to other zoos in the region or visit a few sights in Norwich like the cathedral?

I usually have a whole itinerary written down by now, but as the extra two nights were just decided upon I am in a flurry as to what and where to visit. I also keep checking the weather forecast daily as most of what I want to do is mainly outdoors and is weather dependent. Unfortunately it looks like this lovely sunny ‘late summer’ weather we are having doesn’t look like it is going to last into next week.

Keep your fingers and toes crossed with me that the weather holds for the weekend and I look forward to sharing with you all my pictures and video. 🙂

Christine x