The Lake District

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Today, we joined hordes of Brits out to enjoy a sparkling autumn Sunday in the Lake District.  It was the perfect day to be out and about, and there couldn’t have been a better place for it.  We drove from lake to lake, over high passes through the treeless fells, alongside proverbial babbling brooks, and wandered around quaint towns like Grassmere, where native son William Wordsworth is revered (and buried!)

 In addition to the lakes, forests, mountains, crags, rivers and fells, another natural feature of this area is slate (which is mined, not quarried), the principal building material for everything from small homes to large hotels. 

If I were of a mathematical bent, I could probably come up with a formula to index the beauty of an area by relating it to the ratio of photos taken to miles traveled.  Let’s just say that I could have finished reading (or possibly writing!) a novel in the time I spent waiting for Tom to record one perfect scene after another.  Fortunately for me, the glorious views were visible without a camera and boredom was never an issue! (It was time well spent (Tom))

Football, cricket, rugby, and car racing may get all the attention in the sports press here, but I am convinced that the most popular sport in Britain is walking.  Neither the weather nor the terrain seem to matter, the Brits are out hoofing it. There are public footpaths everywhere – high on mountain passes, through rural fields, across streams, and through small villages – and fences are no barriers, thanks to gates and small step ladders.  On this perfect Sunday, they kicked it up a notch and the hikers were out in full force.  Perhaps they were grabbing what they could before winter arrives, but I have a feeling that many of them will still be out there in three months’ time, when we will be happily weathering winter in the desert!