Beatrix Potter & Wordsworth

---

Geo: 54.3568, -3.03676

From Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny, to William Wordsworth!

We woke on Easter Monday to a rainy day - absolutely pouring! And the hills had waterfalls, and the roads were covered with large puddles, so it must have decent rain even for this area! We drove down the lake to Bowness on Furness, not far from here, where the World of Beatrix Potter attraction is located. It was a lovely way to spend a morning with the kids, who enjoyed exploring the garden (even in the rain), looking at the very clever statues of the characters of the Beatrix Potter books.

Then up to Rydal and Grasmere (eating a car picnic of ham sandwiches on the way, as breakfast had been scanty that morning). Grasmere is famous as the town where Wordsworth spent most of his life, and was buried - but as he only ever lived in the Lakes District, there are lots of "Wordsworth Homes" about! We went through the graveyard and saw his grave, and enjoyed all the daffodils and the quotes from his poetry about the daffodils:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze

Not sure it was the boys' cup of tea! But the little church of St Oswald was also very nice, and 1000 years old! Then we followed our noses (there was the most amazing smell of warmth and spice!) and joined the queue to buy Sarah Nelson's Grasmere Gingerbread, which was as good as it promised to be! There has been a huge legal battle over here in the last couple of years, when the SN Grasmere Gingerbread Co tried to trademark the term "Grasmere Gingerbread" and others claimed that there was gingerbread in the village before Sarah Nelson started making it 150 years ago. Sadly, the Gingerbread Wars resulted in the death (suicide) of one of the proponents of free gingerbread! Here is Stephanie Alexander's recipe (of course, Sarah Nelson's recipe is a more closely guarded secret than Col. Sanders chicken recipe!), following Stephanie's visit to the cottage:
http://www.cuisine.com.au/recipe/Grasmere-gingerbread

We had lunch in the village, at a place that seemed to offer much more than it delivered (most of the food in England has been quite good!) then home for a sleep. The kids really are enjoying us taking it a lot easier this week, and that has meant lots of afternoon naps and evenings at home watching (crappy) English TV or playing Monopoly. The rain didn't let up all day, and it was lovely to be tucked up in our warm little cottage!

---