Grasmere

Happy summer holidays to us!  Having a few weeks without our "regularly scheduled programming" is surely what the doctor--or more rightly--a kind providence ordered.

Summer is coming downstairs to your kids snuggled up watching Ninjago together.

Let's take a moment to celebrate having big kids that don't wake you up at the crack

of dawn needing your immediate attention and care.  Is this the pinnacle of parenting?

We began our summer holidays with a week in Keswick for the Keswick Convention with several members of our church family.  We had a really good time and enjoyed an especially sunny and warm day on Monday when we drove to Grasmere to visit the cottage where William Wordsworth lived.

What a happy fortune to live here indeed!

We joined a guided tour of Dove Cottage where we learned a lot about the poet and his life.  I'm just so thankful I am not living in such small, dark and damp rooms as the ground floor of this cottage had!

The main downstairs room they spent a lot of time in had this lovely window at least!  The windows in the dark kitchen were so small, and we were told they had been increased in size by a third to let in more light.  

This was a his and hers washstand Wordsworth and his wife, Mary Hutchinson, were given as a wedding gift.  The other side would come up as well, the precursor to the double bathroom sink!

This was a pleasant and beautiful room on the first floor (or second floor if you're an American).

This small case is all Wordsworth would carry with him when traveling as far off as France. He inked his name into the top of the case and ran out of room for the H.  It's good to know even great poets do stuff like that.

The garden was lovely and more on the natural and wild side than gardened with a heavy hand.  The Wordsworths would have had a clear view of Grasmere (the lake) when they lived here, but these days the view is somewhat blocked by some houses built in Victorian times.

Stones with various lines written by William and his sister Dorothy lined the upward path to a poet's nook where Ella sat and wrote a little piece of poetry of her own.

I noticed so many beautiful ferns growing in The Lake District.  Perhaps they thrive with all the water?

 

K.J. took the kids off to put the inflatable kayak in the lake where they had a small misadventure when they discovered a leak.  Meanwhile, I was sent to discover some nationally renowned gingerbread recommended to us.  It was indeed, the most amazing of gingerbreads.  I also found the Wordsworth graves.

 Oh, the smell of ginger emanating from this tiny room!

The rest of these pictures were taken out the car window as we drove the winding road back to Keswick.  What a beautiful place.