Grey and damp!

 Not looking like the best day of our week we headed to the Wordsworth museum at Grasmere. 

One section was devoted to Dorothy Wordsworth  - William's sister. She was a very interesting lady who wrote journals about her life. She thought nothing of walking miles over the fells each day wearing what we would find as totally unsuitable hiking gear! Long dress and heavy wool cloak, not waterproof, would not have made me want to hike into the mountains!! She sounded like a very interesting person who became reunited years after they were split up when their mother and then father died! After reading and listening to information we began to wonder if Dorothy had a 'hand' in William's work!

I am not really into poetry but it was very pleasant listening to Wordsworth's poetry while watching a video of the different seasons and changing colour of the Lake district.

We visited Dove Cottage where William, Dorothy and then William's wife Mary and a number of children lived! It was much bigger inside than expected but you wondered how it would have been writing by candle light in already poor light.

Dove cottage.

Following our time at the museum we walked into Grasmere village and managed a quick look around before the rain took hold!

On Friday with a day of rain forecast we made our way to Keswick and the Pencil museum - sounds weird but it was very interesting. The fact that we had 20 questions to answer really made us read and listen to the information! 

The Derwent pencil museum is the home of the first pencil. This came about when graphite was found nearby in 1550. Interestingly the phrase 'black market' comes from the fact of smuggling graphite - it marked the smugglers hands so everyone knew what they'd been up to!

One of the most interesting pieces of information was how, during the war, some very clever people were able to follow out the pencil so that a map and the tiniest compass could be inserted - it was enough to fool the Germans.

Other trivia:

14,000,000,000 pencils made every year - enough to circumnavigate the Earth 62 times,

An average pen civil can be  sharpened 17 time, draw a line 35 miles long and write 45,000 words!

You never know when this trivia may be important😆😆 and we did score 20/20!