The Lakes again

4-11 October 2025

I persuaded Ruth to accompany me to the Lake District last autumn, and as we’re just about to set off for a repeat trip, I should publish my jotted down musings from last time.

Where we stayed

Acorns again, this time booked through Lakeland Retreats. I’d liked it so much when Ray and I stayed there in 2024 it seemed like a no-brainer to stay there again. Given my distaste for doing much driving while on holiday, it did mean restricting ourselves to local activities or those that could be reached by a bus, but I didn’t mind that. The apartment was as nice as it had been the previous year.

I engaged a bit more with the Alexa on this occasion. After a false start, have managed to work out that “Alexa” has to be the first thing you say:

Attempt 1
Me: Good evening, Alexa.
Alexa: [something random, like "What time would you like the alarm set for?"]

Attempt 2
Me: Alexa, good evening.
Alexa: Good evening.

Increasing confidence led to things like:

Me: Alexa, please play some recorder music.
Alexa: [obliges]
Ruth: [screams]

No, I probably don’t have to begin interactions with Alexa by saying "Good evening", but then I’m old enough to use correct punctuation in text messages.

My younger colleague Sorcha advised me that she and her husband have an Alexa, but that so far she’s only used it as a speaker and an alarm, so hasn’t yet plumbed its full range of possibilities.

Journey up

We made two service station stops, at Norton Canes for lunch and at Lancaster for a cup of tea and to visit the ever-more-rusty Pennine Tower. Moto were making a low-key attempt to give the tower a bit of publicity, though sadly all the postcards had been snaffled by the time I got there. What’s going to happen to it? I know, fire regulations, general impracticality, but surely some sort of attachment could be built on the side of it that would allow for things like disabled access, escape in the event of fire etc. Perhaps some sort of chute.

Me in front of the Pennine Tower

Moto's information sheet

Given forecasts before we set off, we had been expecting to run into the tail end of Storm Amy. From memory, the northern part of the M6 was quite windy and it was a blustery evening, but the rest of the week wasn't too bad at all.

We stopped at Booths in Windermere to buy a few groceries, including this extra-plump chicken, as we both fancied a roast dinner given the continued non-functioning of our oven at home.

Plump chicky

 

Day 1 (Sunday): Roman fort; lunch at the Waterhead

We walked down to Waterhead, Ambleside's lakeside bit, and visited Ambleside Roman Fort.

Ambleside Roman Fort

We thought about going for a boat trip, but didn't and instead went for an indifferent lunch at the Waterhead Inn. I should have known better as I'd had an indifferent lunch there with Ray the previous year.

The Waterhead was hosting an “Artisan Fair”, which turned out to be a few tables at the far end of the bar selling homemade jewellery and other bits and pieces. We made the mistake of pausing at a table selling ominously green vegan-friendly face creams and cosmetics, and were approached by a woman who asked us, somewhat intrusively I thought, “Do You Exfoliate?” We both responded “Yes”, defensively, but it led me to reflect on the subtext behind these sorts of questions from (usually) women selling skincare products:

Question: Do you exfoliate?
Subtext: because it doesn’t look like you do; your outer layer of dead skin could be seen from Mars

Question: You’re not wearing much makeup, are you?
Subtext: You need to wear a lot more.

Question: Have You Ever Thought About Concealing [X, where X is some facial imperfection you’ve spent years trying to conceal, and thought you had on this occasion]
Subtext: I spotted X when you were still 100 yards down the road.

In the end I bought two lemon cupcakes from a cake stall. I suspected Cake Girl was doing the briskest business of the day.

Our route from Acorns down to Waterhead

 

Day 2 (Monday): Keswick and the Pencil Museum; the Heaton Cooper Gallery

I was persuaded due to the wet weather forecast to visit the Derwent Pencil Museum in Keswick, somewhere Ray joked for years about wanting to go to. At least, I always assumed he was joking but his affronted reaction on learning I'd been there with Ruth hinted that he might have been serious. As I was sticking to my plan not to drive this week, we took the bus to Keswick, a journey of about 45 minutes from Ambleside, largely up the A591 with a segue into Grasmere village. Pretty good views. The buses both ways were very crowded. On the outward journey we were squeezed at the back among a group of young hikers. On the return ride we managed to join the queue at an early stage and Ruth was able to get us front seats on the top deck.

View from the top deck of bus 555 on our return journey

The Pencil Museum was, indeed, moderately interesting, though I’m not sure it’s somewhere I would have gone left to myself. It seemed a friendly and well-run little place. You get given an admission ticket in the form of a pencil, which I thought was cute, although I don’t use pencils very much.

The Pencil Museum

I was interested to learn about Charles Fraser-Smith, allegedly the inspiration for ‘Q’ in the James Bond stories. The staff at the pencil factory had evidently been involved in returning to the factory after hours during wartime to do secret undercover stuff.

Here I am by the pencil costume worn by Alex Morales to run the 2018 London Marathon. He achieved the fastest marathon time for someone dressed as a stationery item.

We had lunch (a sourdough toastie) at a café called Yonder. I bought an unnecessary sweater in Seasalt.

On the return journey we got off the bus in Grasmere as I wanted to visit the Heaton Cooper gallery, which is just opposite the main bus stop. I bought an image of Rydal Water. The gallery also sells some cute pottery, but I managed to persuade myself I didn’t need any more cute little pots.

In the gallery I learned about Ophelia Gordon Bell, wife of William Heaton Cooper and an artist (actually a sculptress) in her own right. Her sculpture ‘Madonna and Child’ is inside Grasmere’s St Oswald’s Church. We went to visit St Oswald’s and noted the Wordsworth Graves in the churchyard.

The yellow tower of St Oswald's, Grasmere

The Wordsworth Graves

We had a cream tea at Green’s before getting the bus back to Ambleside.

Where we had a cream tea

In the evening I beat Ruth at Scrabble.

 

Day 3 (Tuesday): Walk from Ambleside to Grasmere [6 miles]

We took the footpath leading off the end of Stoney Lane across Rothay Park to join Under Loughrigg, a pleasing little road meandering along the base of Loughrigg and ending at Pelter Bridge, at the eastern end of Rydal Water.

Lovely Lakeland dampness

Ruth marvelling at something

Rydal Water

We followed the path along Rydal Water with a quick detour to look at Rydal Cave.

Me in the mouth of Rydal Cave

We followed a path down into White Moss Wood and found a log to sit on to eat our sandwiches.

River Rothay in White Moss Wood

After lunch we followed the path along the southern shore of Grasmere, which takes you up onto the road before you reach the village as there are some properties here with lake frontage. We were feeling in need of a sit down so stopped off at Faeryland. I think "stunning lakeside tea garden" is overdoing it, but the dampish weather perhaps didn't help. It's a rather spit-and-sawdust establishment with a sort of half-arsed attempt at a grotto.

Grasmere

Ruth at Faeryland

Grotto area at Faeryland. I think there was a fairy in there somewhere

We got the bus back into Ambleside.

Our route

 

Day 4 (Wednesday): Stock Ghyll Force, then lounging about in the flat

We visited Stock Ghyll Force. Slippery paths and I should have taken my poles, but hadn’t as I hadn’t felt inclined to carry them around the town afterwards. Spent much of the time worrying about making my then-left knee issue worse by uncontrolled skidding and lurching about.

Early morning view from the porch of 'Acorns'

The lower bit of Stock Ghyll Force

We had lunch at The Flying Fleece and then visited St Mary's Church on Vicarage Road. Noted the large mural depicting Rushbearing.

The mural

Inside the church, but I can't remember what this was about

Day 5 (Thursday): walk up Wansfell Pike and Wansfell [about 7 ¹⁄₂ miles]

This was the nearest we came to a Big Walk, given a slight feeling of pleasant laziness this week plus ongoing issue with my left leg that made steep descents a bit undesirable.

We took the path up Wansfell that leaves the road just above Stock Ghyll Force. It’s a steepish walk up but no scrambling involved and the views are great.

Ascending Wansfell Pike

After reaching the summit of Wansfell Pike, which is the best viewpoint, and admiring the views, Ruth decided she'd like to additionally walk to the actual summit of Wansfell, something Ray and I hadn't bothered to do the previous year. So we did.

Approaching the summit of Wansfell. Aka Baystones, apparently.

Wainwright is withering about Wansfell, and fairly withering even about the Pike:

At the top

The pile of stones that AW refers to

For our return walk, we opted not to walk down into Troutbeck, partly because we’d already established that the tea room there was closed. Instead we took a path cutting across country to join Robin Lane, a track that runs between Troutbeck and Skelghyll Woods past farmland.

These ponies were reluctant to shift themselves

We walked through Skelghyll Woods and back down into Ambleside.

On our return to Ambleside we stopped for a celebratory pint (of Swan Blonde in my case; Aspalls in Ruth’s) at the Ambleside Inn, before staggering back up the steep roads to Acorns. On noticing that the Ambleside Inn was managed by the Inn Collection, who also manage the Waterhead, we didn’t feel inclined to eat there.

Our route

Strava's elevation graph

Day 6 (Friday): solo bumbling

I took a walk by myself out of Ambleside to the National Trust’s Stagshaw Garden. In the event I didn’t go far into the woods as they felt a bit too secluded. I walked back along the shores of Windermere at Jenkin’s Field.

In the evening we ordered a pizza delivery from The Sourdough Pizza Co., whose advertising we’d clocked the previous day. It was the first time in many years that I’d ordered a pizza with pineapple on it, but it was quite pleasant.