No visa needed!

 Saturday was when we left our cosy cottage - it had been a wonderful time in the Lakes!

We travelled to Carlisle where I was unceremoniously 'chucked' out of the car at the railway station! It seemed like my time had come! Not one to be upset I jumped, well not literally at my age!, onto a train to Glasgow. Luckily I found my hotel and then began to wander the city on foot! Jake and John were off to walk along some of Hadrian's Wall!

Slight difference here is that we have to wear masks 99.9% of the time - very different to England! As I was wandering I did come across an anti-vax rally - good thing I was wearing a mask as a few expletives did come out at the stupidity of what was being said!!!

Most places don't take cash, which is probably a good thing in my case as England will not accept Scottish £ notes!

The city is bigger than I expected so I clocked up quite a few steps.

On Sunday I went round on the 'hop on/off bus to see all the sights and then once again took to shanks's pony.

 

Today I caught the train to Edinburgh. Hard to believe that in 50 minutes you can be from one side to the other on the narrowest point of Scotland!

Couldn't get into hotel until mid afternoon so took two different routes on the hop on/off bus. These tours are really good but there is so much information that you can't take it all in!

 Saw this guy just as he was getting his ...... bagpipes out!

By 3pm the rain was coming down so it was back to the hotel for a cuppa and to warm up.

Luckily yesterday I decided to err on the side of caution and dress warmly even though the day was bright with some sunshine. Up at the Castle it was fffffreezing! Can't imagine how it would have been hundreds of years ago! No wonder the fireplaces were sooo big! The views were rather spectacular!

 

I left the Castle and went to the main museum. It was very interesting and good to be out of the biting wind! I checked on Dolly for you Marian!

A few hours of daylight left I took to the last bus route on the 'hop on/off bus tour. This one was with an actual tour guide whose jokes often fell flat! I certainly got my money's worth out of this ticket but I did sometimes wonder about the people who took them. With so much history oozing out on every street their excitement at seeing 'Nandos' or 'TKMax' was mind blowing - oh well no accounting for taste!

Some of the Edinburgh buildings do look lovely by night!

 This morning I'm back on a train to Carlisle where hopefully Jake and John will pick me up and we will head back home!

 

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!

Cold but sunny

 A trip to Bowness-on- Windermere gave us the opportunity to wander along the lake edge. Lots of people were out and about boarding boats, strolling through the village or sitting watching the ducks!

We walked around some of the waters edge taking in the views.

There was an enormous amount of money moored in the marina! The cold weather must have put owners off!

During our wandering we spotted an unusual build out on Belle island. We later found out that it is a calendar house. It has 365 panes of glass (weeks in year), 52 windows (weeks in year), 12 doors (months in year), 7 rooms (days in week), 4 pillars (seasons)

A pub lunch called to us and we were able to find a food item off our list - Cumberland sausage! It was very tasty but too much food - the three of us would have been better off sharing one place! We then made an effort to walk off some of the food!

Weaving our way through the lanes we came across a Christmas shop declaring 'only 292 days to go'!

I did buy a couple of decorations - haven't been able to add to my collection of decorations bought overseas for quite a while!!!!

Weather apps have been our way to gauge what to do each day and as the outlook was not the best we headed to Grange-over-Sands.  Arriving there we were very surprised to see a mobile bank in the carpark, complete with lift for elderly customers! A walk through a park with pond and a variety of different ducks led us to the promenade! 

Although you look out over Morecombe Bay you are not able to go on the beach because it is salt marsh hence the promenade!

 The prom had lovely gardens and many seats along its length.

 

 

 

Down narrow lanes!

 Before leaving Bradford we visited a gallery showing works by David Hockney. To be honest I couldn't quite understand his early work which was influenced by Picasso! I did like some of the work he did on the iPad relating to spring.

Learning about the history of Salts mill was very interesting especially as Sir Titus Salt was the first person to use Alpacca wool, 1800s, in the weaving process.

Arriving in the afternoon we, eventually, got into our cottage!

 It is very cosy! 

We made an effort (!) to find the nearest pub, unfortunately not the best place to get to on foot as the lanes are so narrow. What was a pub just down the road is now an Airbnb place!!!

Yesterday we ventured to Grizedale forest - I had read that there were numerous sculptures within the forest. Unfortunately with the number of storms which have hit the UK in recent months the many fallen trees have caused some hazards and diversions were in place. One diversion took us onto a forest road until such a time as we saw a cycle track so wandered that way - slightly difficult with large stones and boggy areas.

There were a few interesting sculptures along the way.

Turning the key resulted iTunes ringing out through the forest. We tried to beat little kids to turning the keys!!!

 a sheep!

 Spot the sheep!

As we left the forest we found a pub serving roast Sunday lunch, with  screeching of tyres we did a Lewis Hamilton swerve in for a pit stop! The pub was full of people and their pets!! I have found eating in a place full of dogs rather off-putting  - where is health and safety?!

Great roast dinner with all the trimmings including an extra large Yorkshire!

Today we woke to quite a heavy frost- no sheep outside my window this morning!

Breakfast discussion resulted in a trip to Coniston Water - famous for Sir Donald Campbell setting water speed records before the attempt which killed him. We had a boat trip on the lake.We enjoyed a walk around the village and could see snow on the top of some of the mountains - it was seriously cold here, 4C!

On our journey there were many pheasants in the fields - reminded me of Roald Dahl's 'Danny Champion of the World'! Just don't think that if you hit one of these slightly dozy birds that you can take it home and roast it because there is a rule! If you hit a pleasant you cannot pick it up but the next person can - moral of the story have your mate drive behind you🤣!

 Had a delicious meal tonight at the Punch bowl pub. Their cheese shuffle was the best!

Made it to Bradford!

 I forgot to mention, when describing Witley Court,  was that at Christmas a huge tree was decorated with precious jewels! The guests were able to take a gem home!! That's why I'm always early!

I enjoyed a morning game of table tennis in the local village hall. My 'garage training' was paying off I just have to become 'poker faced' when serving! It was a lot of fun.

Yesterday we set off in the rain for Bradford! Why Bradford you may well ask! Our 'Book Club' read a novel by a Bradford native based on his home town. It used to be a place where no one would venture  as it had an unsavoury side to it.

Set in West Yorkshire, Bradford came to prominence during the Industrial revolution and was known as the Wool Capital of the World. Remnants of the mills can be seen around the city.

After a mid afternoon arrival we walk along to what was formerly the Salt Mill - not the salt you shake over your chips - but because of Sir Titus Salt. He chose to build his textile mills and a village for his workers here - it now has World Heritage Status.

 

  We caught the train into the centre of Bradford. Everyone who worked at the station was so friendly and genuinely kind in helping us to reach the city. We chatted to a couple of the ticket collectors, a girl from Pakistan and a guy from India, who thought it was lovely that a family was travelling together - there was a bit of eye rolling from Jake at that comment! They were interesting and said we'd made their day!

Our first stop was to the Mark and Sparks cafe for a delicious, greasy, well cooked bacon roll - talk about set you up for the day! Yum!

The buildings, although from the Victorian era, wouldn't have been out of place in Europe, maybe France.

We visited the National Science and Media Museum which became the first UNESCO City of Film. The exhibits relate to photography, film and television and also scientific principles between light and colour. We laughed as we remembered some of the adverts and TV shows from our youth but also how animation came about. We 'played' on all the exhibits but nearly came undone in the hall of mirrors! It was a fabulous museum but could do with a few seats for those weary patrons i.e. us!

 

We found a gallery which was exhibiting some photography produce by youngsters during lock down. It was a project which,using zoom, gave lessons on how to take good photos and then asked the students to take photos expressing how they felt. It was interesting to see how many said they missed school. There were some outstanding works.

It was a really interesting day and didn't our feet know it!