The Lakes

Continuing the tradition of blogging stuff months after it happens, a few belated notes on our family holiday in the Lakes in early April (Dave has already reported on this here).

General

We have taken a good many holidays in the Lakes as a family, though not recently – it was 13 years since I’d last been there (pics of that holiday, in 2005, here). Lovely to go again in the company of Mum and Dad, Dave and Hazel and the kiddies. Hannah and Henry had been due to come but had to pull out due to Henry suffering a foot injury shortly before the holiday date. Ruth, unfortunately, was apparently traumatized by a wet day trip to the Lakes as a teenager, so had let me know early on that she’d prefer not to accompany us. On the plus side, Ray ended up joining us for most of the days we were there, which was an unexpected treat.

Day 1

Actually I started out on Day 0, as I didn’t fancy doing the whole drive at once so a while back had booked a room at the Premier Inn Trentham Gardens, near Stoke-on-Trent, which looked from the map to be roughly around the halfway mark and at least past Birmingham. Drove on the M6 Toll for the first time. Traffic busy towards the end of the journey but I found the hotel reasonably easily with the helpful directions of Google Maps. Met up with Ray, who had been able to book himself a room in the same hotel, and went for a brief stroll around the nearby shopping village before going to the hotel restaurant for dinner.

My room looked out onto this bizarre round bowling green with sloping edges, which I was reliably informed was for playing crown green bowls, apparently a variant of lawn bowls played in the Midlands and north of England.

Round bowling green

The neighbouring Trentham Gardens looked worth a visit, but we decided we’d get straight on up to Cumbria the next morning. On the Saturday morning we set off separately northwards and met up again briefly at Lancaster (formerly Forton) services, where we had a cup of tea looking out onto rain pelting onto the M6.

Arrived in Keswick early afternoon and located the Low Briery Holiday Park, where I had booked two cottages back in September, and more recently a camping pod. Mum and Dad arrived shortly after us; Dave and family a bit later as they'd been held up on the M6. The mammoth Tesco shop that Hazel had organised duly turned up, and Nia pitched in carrying empty crates back out to the delivery man. Mum had made and transported a cottage pie for the first evening, which went down well.

The cottages at Low Briery. Cottage 4 and 5 (ours) centre and right

Camping pod 2, and my Fiesta

Day 2

The accommodation worked out well, with Dave, Hazel and the kids occupying one cottage, Mum, Dad and Ray occupying the other, and me occupying the camping pod. Here's the view from the pod on the first morning.

River Greta, from camping pod 2

On the first full day we elected to walk along the railway path into Keswick. Dave has already detailed the recent fate of part of the railway path; thankfully the stretch from Low Briery into Keswick remains intact. Pleasant enough walk of a mile or so, though neither of the little girls appeared in the mood and alternated being a bit grizzly (Nia)/bawling (Alys) for most of the time we were out.

Dad on the railway path

We walked into Keswick and stopped at the playground in Lower Fitz Park. Ray and I volunteered to walk into the town centre and purchase Calpol for the girls, as Hazel theorised they might be sickening for something; we duly did and I purchased Calpol and Calpol Six Plus for the first and possibly last time in my life. We had a bite to eat at the café. Dad and Ray then decamped to a nearby pub; poor Dave elected to walk back to Low Briery to fetch their car, as neither of the girls appeared in the mood to walk back. Mum and I stayed with the kids in the cottage while Dave and Hazel went to join Dad and Ray for a probably much-needed drink.

Ray and I went for an evening walk later to view the point where the railway path has been closed off. Hopefully the finances will be raised to rebuild it in due course, but it does look like quite a job.

Dave had the good idea of setting up a 'Family @ Lakes' WhatsApp group, which we used for useful comms throughout the week.

Day 3

A Twirlywoo

I was briefly taken aback to hear both Nia and Alys respond “Brioche” when asked what they wanted for breakfast (tsk, the modern child) but it turned out Hazel had ordered shedloads of both chocolate and vanilla brioche for them. A routine was set of the girls coming to Mum and Dad’s cottage for breakfast, demanding brioche and then abandoning it in favour of CBeebies (BTW, how cute are the Twirlywoos?).

Dave and Hazel went off for a day’s walking around the Buttermere fells. Ray went off for a bike ride. Mum, Dad and I stayed with the kids. Nia started work towards a Rainbows task she’d been set, to do with healthy eating. She also started work on a jigsaw depicting a map of the world – unfortunately Alys became interested and her attempts to help involved variously standing on the jigsaw and attempting to put pieces in so violently that they dislodged half a dozen other pieces. Nia wasn’t too happy with this and there were loud references to ‘My Sister the Destroyer’. Ray attempted to peacemake by attempting to enlist Alys’ help finding certain pieces. Later the girls tried out the new scooters they’d acquired for their recent birthdays.

Nia preparing healthy food

Alys scooting

Dave on a fell somewhere

Day 4

Ray and I did the walk around Derwentwater reported here. Mum and Dad took themselves off for a walk up around the Castlerigg Stone Circle, though unfortunately the inclement weather cut things a bit short for them.

Dad at the stone circle

Dave and Hazel took the kids out for the day to Wray Castle, on the shores of Windermere – the day seems to have included a boat trip, ice creams and lots of dressing up.

Day 5

All of us except Dad (who stayed in the cottage for some peace and quiet) went out to Whinlatter Forest, where Nia and Alys did the Highway Rat Activity Trail. I'd never been to Whinlatter before; it seems to be described as ‘England’s only true mountain forest’. We had tea at the Visitor Centre. Thankfully the kids are too young for things like 'Go Ape', as I can't say I'd be all that keen.

Dad cooked us all a curry in the evening.

Day 6

Dave and Ray went out for the day to ‘do’ Scafell and, it turned out, also Scafell Pike. Dave's write up here.

Mum, Hazel, Dad and I took the kids to Mirehouse, on the shores of Bassenthwaite Lake.

The girls and Dad investigate a stream

In the walled garden

Mirehouse

We had an initial pootle about and a look at the walled garden and maze, then Mum and Dad walked down to the lakeshore while Hazel and I went to one of the adventure playgrounds with the girls. Initially I minded Huwie while Hazel went round the circuit with Alys, Nia racing ahead; then Hazel suggested that I have a turn accompanying Alys round. Which I did – Alys was adorable running up planks and then waiting to be lifted down; I managed to heave myself variously over and under the obstacles, though not sure it would have been a pretty sight for anyone watching. We had tea and cake at the Old Sawmill Tearoom, just making it in before closing time.

Dave and Ray on the summit of Scafell

The adults had a takeaway evening (apart from Dad, who doesn’t really do takeaways and ate up the leftover curry instead). Ray and I drove into Keswick to collect them: fish and chips for him, Mum and Hazel from The Kingfisher on Main Street – seemingly a quality establishment judging by the long queues and all the signs around noting that they cook stuff fresh to order; pizza for Dave and me from LB's.

Day 7

On the morning of our last full day, Ray and I drove up to the Castlerigg Stone Circle for a pootle around the stones, and I went for a solo mooch around Keswick.

At the stone circle

To mark our last day, we all went for lunch at The Horse and Farrier at Threlkeld. On a previous holiday we had walked there along the railway path, but not on this occasion due to both the presence of little people and the collapse of part of the path in the interim. Hopefully it will be fixed at some point though I imagine that would be an expensive business.

Huwie made progress with his crawling over the course of the week, and with the pulling himself up on furniture.

Persuaded Ray to enable Google location sharing prior to going out for his bike ride on the Monday, so that in the event of e.g. unforeseen freewheeling over the edge of a precipice, we'd know where he'd last been. He kept it enabled for his subsequent walk up the Scafells with Dave. It's a useful service, though the jury's out on how reassuring it actually is, as it can take a while to update and occasionally comes up with worrying "cannot refresh location" messages, making one think that someone has been unmoving in the wilds for the past four hours just as they in fact walk in the door.

Sharing Ray's location on his bike ride

Verdict on the week: it was lovely to be back in the Lakes again, and there are rumblings about going again next year.

Walk via Stoke Row and Checkendon, 5.8 miles

14 July

Walk with Ray, along some of the country roads north of Reading that he often cycles along.

This was a lovely walk through pretty wooded countryside along some country lanes and footpaths. Several of the lanes had signs by them denoting them as a ‘Quiet Lane’ – I hadn’t been familiar with this concept but according to the CPRE, local authorities can designate lanes in rural areas as ‘Quiet Lanes’. They’re apparently intended as a way for people to walk, cycle and horse ride in a ‘safer environment’, which I assume means with less risk of being taken out by passing vehicles. Quiet Lanes were evidently an outcome of the CPRE’s ‘Safer Country Lanes’ campaign.

We drove to Cane End via Horsepond Road and turned onto a quiet road (Park Lane) running through woods. Parked up here and Ray made us coffee and a bacon roll, courtesy of his camper van's cunning little kitchen. After breakfast we headed into the woods and joined a path running through the wood to come out at a crossroads, where we turned north along a country lane towards Stoke Row.

Breakfasting in the woods

Stoke Row is a pleasant village typical of affluent South Oxfordshire; it's distinguished by the 'Maharajah's Well', sunk in the 1860s and bankrolled by the Maharajah of Benares. It has an ornate cover with a cute golden elephant on the top. Here's a BBC News piece on it from 2012.

The tiny Well Cottage next to the well was apparently built for the well’s caretaker. It isn’t much bigger than the well so it’s to be hoped the caretaker didn’t have too many possessions.

Well Cottage, Stoke Row

Me in front of the well

Stoke Row’s village store now incorporates a café, where we stopped for an ice cream – we would have had a cup of tea but were a bit nervous for our bladders (the store doesn’t have a toilet and there’s not much else in the vicinity).

We left Stoke Row via a footpath that eventually came out on Uxmore Road in Checkendon. After a little way along this road we turned left by the former 'Four Horseshoes' pub (now closed) along Deer’s Lane, another ‘Quiet Lane’. We stayed on this lane, past Hook End Farm, to return to the van.

The now-closed Four Horseshoes at Checkendon

Map of the route:

Walking to Newport Pagnell

Well, strictly speaking, I got the bus to the Oakridge Park Asda and then walked from there, to cut out the initial dull walk through New Bradwell. Newport Pagnell is an older town that’s now part of Milton Keynes. As I’d never yet been there it seemed like a goal for a walk. This walk from and back to Asda was a total of 8.4 miles.

Overall impression: the most direct route to NP by far is along the old railway path, which I don’t particularly enjoy walking along as I find it a bit too secluded for comfort. On the outward route, I began by walking through the Oakridge Park development along Selkirk Drive, coming out further down Wolverton Road. The stretch of Wolverton Road between the Black Horse and the Redhouse Park estate annoyingly seems to have no footpath running alongside it, so I was forced briefly onto the canal towpath and then onto the railway path. I turned off this as soon as I could to come out on Marsh Drive, but then had to resort to Google Maps to find my way and after a short walk through Giffard Park it directed me straight back onto the railway path. I gave it up as a bad job at this point and continued along the path right to its endpoint in Newport Pagnell, passing under the V10 and the M1. Thankfully I did encounter a few cyclists to break up the seclusion.

I couldn't see any evidence on the ground of the former Newport Pagnell railway station, so assume it's been completely built over. There are some old photos of it here. I walked a bit further into NP town centre and had tea and cake at Costa.

Outward route, mainly along the railway path

Decided not to go back the same way and returned by a more circuitous route, firstly leaving NP town centre along Silver Street - some attractive old houses along here including one huge Victorian monster, that appeared to be up for sale when I passed it. A quick Google search suggests it's called Lovat Bank. Walked down Willen Road to join Tongwell Lane, which looks to have been a through road at one point though it’s now blocked to through traffic. It crosses over the M1 via bridge.

Tongwell Lane crossing the M1. Looking back in the Newport Pagnell direction

A bit further on after crossing the motorway you come to Tongwell Lake, seemingly the home of Milton Keynes Water Ski Club.

Tongwell Lake

Walked through Blakelands and across the V10 into Great Linford, then via Linford Manor Park back to the railway path. Turned off the path into Stonepit Field and after a bit of time spent looking for the exit, eventually emerged back onto Wolverton Road where I walked back to Asda.

Stonepit Field

Return route via Tongwell Lake

Car-related woes

Took my little Fiesta to Anglos for its MOT in late April, only to have it fail on three tyres – OK, I understand those get worn – and, more seriously, a bent wheel rim on the offside rear wheel.

MOT: failure 1

As, for whatever reason, the Fiesta has alloy rather than steel wheels fitted to it, replacing one is a surprisingly tricky and expensive business. Can only guess the damage was done on a pothole. Although they did replace one of the nearside wheels for me around six years ago, Anglos apparently no longer ‘do’ wheels – Shelly advised that my best bet was to try and get a cheap one on eBay. As I haven’t been in the most robust frame of mind over the last month or so, I made the mature decision to ignore the whole issue until I could face dealing with it, with the result that I spent about five weeks travelling around entirely by public transport. Which was surprisingly relaxing and enjoyable, and I also lost a few pounds (which I’ve now regained).

Discovered that it is possible to travel back to Reading from Milton Keynes via Oxford rather than London, if you take the handy Stagecoach X5 service to Oxford and then the train to Reading. It takes quite a bit longer than the drive would but is much more relaxing. To do the journey entirely by train means going into London from MK and then out again to Reading, and also costs about twice as much as the bus/train combo via Oxford. The X5 bus service is reasonably priced, air-conditioned and enables one to variously read a magazine/look out of the window, as opposed to festering behind the wheel in Friday evening traffic.

To return to the MOT: after I related the story to Ray he went into organizer mode and very kindly offered to sort out the work for me, though he found sourcing a used alloy more complicated than expected and eventually bought a new one from Foray Parts via Amazon.

Eventually had the wheel and tyre work done on 11 June at Wolverton FastFit Station on Old Wolverton Road – seemed like a good place. Elected to have all four tyres replaced despite one of the four only being under ‘advisory’ at this stage.

Presented the car at Anglos a couple of days later for its re-test, and was a bit despairing when they phoned mid-morning to say it had failed again, on two different things this time (!!). One was a fairly minor issue with one of the wipers, which they were able to sort; the other was an apparent issue with the revs which had led to its failing the CO test. On learning that the car had been off road for about a month, the mechanic suggested that that could have contributed, so offered to give it a drive around and then test it again. Very much to my relief, taking it for a spin up the A5 did appear to solve the problem and they were able to pass it later that day.

MOT: failure 2

Having forked out around £400 on the wheel and tyre repair, I took it back to Anglos the following week for them to fix a problem with the driver’s door window, as I’d managed somehow to get this stuck a while back. I was expecting this to be a minor repair, but Shelly rang to say that actually it was a reasonably sized job involving replacing the motor and something called a ‘regulator’, and was going to cost in the region of £200. FFS. Gave them the go ahead as I needed it fixed; when I later went to collect it the mechanic regaled me with how he’d “almost had to take the whole bleedin’ door off”, or some such. I made some sort of acknowledging noise which I hope sounded both incredulous and grateful, paid up and drove the car off somewhat gingerly. Have instructed it not to run up any more bills for the next few months.

Open Squares

A couple of Sundays ago Ruth and I headed for the Open Garden Squares weekend, which we last went to in 2016. Profiting by experiences at previous such events of spending most of the day travelling between venues, we were determined to pick a collection of places to visit within a reasonably confined area. I decided I wanted to visit some actual garden squares this time, and picked a selection from the 'Kensington, Brompton and Chelsea' section of the guide.

Ruth in Thurloe Square

First up, after brunch at the Carluccio's opposite South Kensington tube, was Thurloe Square, which Ruth later decided she liked the best of all the squares we saw - unlike all the others, it was divided up into different zones rather than having a central lawn surrounded by paths.

We then visited the nearby Ismaili Centre - a building I've noticed before but never gone into - as its roof garden was open as part of the weekend. This one had a 'no photography' rule, so no pictures - but here's a photo of it in the guide, sans the crowds that were there when we visited. We were escorted in the lift up several floors and then joined a small group for a mini-tour. The garden was apparently designed as a traditional four-part garden or 'chahar bagh'. It's very lovely.

After this we visited the Brompton Food Market for a cup of tea, then headed westwards along Cromwell Road to visit Courtfield Gardens (East) and (West). The 'East' garden is mainly occupied by a church, though apparently it now houses a theological college.

In Courtfield Gardens (East)

The 'West' garden is a more standard lawned area surrounded by paths. We failed to locate the handkerchief tree mentioned in the guidebook. On the way in we were handed a guide to the plants in the garden, but with only their Latin names given, which wasn't too helpful - though quite a few Latin plant names give the impression of being crudely made up from English words with Latin-type endings (admittedly we couldn't spot 'handkerchiefium' on the list, though we did look for it).

Courtfield Gardens (West)

On a couple of streets away to Bramham Gardens, with a different feel of house (variously red-brick Victorian and Dutch-Gothic style, apparently).

Victorian houses backing onto Bramham Gardens

Then on to Collingham Gardens - these are really lovely, bordered by interesting terraces of houses - including these - that back directly onto the gardens. The lucky residents must really get a peaceful green oasis feeling in the middle of London.

Collingham Gardens

The last garden we visited was Gledhow Gardens. For whatever reason - possibly garden saturation by this point - I didn't take any pictures of this one, but was very charmed to see the actual two cats that grace the photo of these gardens in the guidebook (below), together with their elderly owner and two cat baskets. Does she bring the cats into the garden every day? One of them looked like a British Blue, lovely- if slightly cross-looking cats that you don't see often. Both were lying around in the sun when we arrived at the garden; after a while both headed back into their cat baskets when the owner got up. Intriguing - clearly they know the form and don't wander off.

We headed back to Paddington across Hyde Park, feeling extremely constructive at having visited seven venues in the space of only a couple of hours or so. Park was full of people sunning themselves. Lovely sunny day and thankfully I didn't get too much hay fever, given the awfulness of the pollen levels currently.

Ruth in Hyde Park

Circuit of Derwentwater, 10.35 miles

10 April 2018

Ray eager for the off

Did this walk with Ray on one of the days of our family holiday in the Lake District back in early April. Although the route says to start from Keswick, we thought the car park by the Keswick Launch might be a bit crowded so drove south down the eastern shore of the lake and parked at the car park just off the B5289 on the road that leads to Ashness Bridge.

The first part of the walk followed a path through woodland towards Lodore Falls, which we paused to have a look at, though I’ve visited it a good many times before. Due to lots of building work going on, the footbridge and path round the back of the hotel were closed so we had to partially retrace our steps back down to the road.

Me in front of Lodore Falls

Further along the road, turned off onto the path leading down to the River Derwent, across the foot of the lake. Ray had a bit of a distance vision fail just here: from the road, he had exclaimed at apparently seeing a person in the middle of the marshy area, but I pointed out that it was a sheep just in time to avoid him gallantly plunging to their aid. My distance vision is thus far still good, though I now have trouble making out detail that’s a foot from my face.

Crossed over the footbridge and followed the board walk to the far side of the lake.

Passed the Teddy in the Window.

Walked through the woods at Brandelhow, stopping for a snack at a convenient picnic table. Passed lots of people heading up onto Cat Bells.

Passed Lingholm. Stopped at the café at Nichol End Marine – unpretentious but pleasant, and featuring some record-breakingly enormous cakes. Walked on via Portinscale into Keswick, and then out the other side past the Keswick Launch landing stages.

Called in at Friar's Crag, which is evidently a famous viewpoint. Walked through an odd little woodland apparently known as The Ings, then around Calfclose Bay and back down the road to the car park.

View from Friar's Crag

The Ings

Passed a couple of sculptures en route: 'Entrust', near Low Brandelhow on the western shore, and the Hundred Year Stone, so called as it was put in place to mark 100 years of the National Trust.

'Entrust'

The Hundred Year Stone

Lovely walk and Derwentwater is a beautiful lake, though we weren’t particularly lucky with the weather – it was an overcast day and drizzled intermittently most of our way round. Our weather apps cheerfully indicated a 99% chance of rain for much of the route.

Our route shown in red on the map:

That London

Have only had a couple of days in London so far this year so it’s time for more (indeed, it's the Open Garden Squares weekend next weekend, which we're aiming to go to).

On the last Saturday in January Ruth and I made the journey over to Canary Wharf to see where she was working (and is still working, as at time of writing) for KPMG. Obviously dead impressed, what with their being a high-profile company and all, though my only direct experience of them has been as external auditors on behalf of HEFCW in 2011, not long after I started at the OU, and having to run around sorting out various levels of access for them.

It was a generally wet day but in addition to Ruth pointing out her building, we visited the fascinating Museum of London Docklands.

Wet Canary Wharf

The Museum of London Docklands

Ruth was stymied in her plan for us to walk to The Grapes at Limehouse (Ian McKellen’s pub) for lunch, due to rain, inconveniently-sited road works and my increasing irritability (Ruth isn’t the first person to point out that I become irritable when hungry). In the end we ate at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen and viewed this large inflatable bunny before heading home.

Inflatable bunny

Second trip was on a Saturday in mid-March. Ruth wanted to see a play, ‘Mary Stuart’, starring Juliet Stevenson and Lia Williams as alternately Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I – apparently a coin was tossed before the performance to decide who was going to be Mary and who Elizabeth that particular performance. Incredible how the actors can work like that. I had declined to see it as the tickets were reasonably expensive and I thought it might be a bit heavy-going for me. However Ruth enjoyed it, which was good. Turns out Stevenson was Queen Elizabeth for that particular performance.

While Ruth was being cultural, I went for a walk out of Volume 1 of London’s Hidden Walks, a darling little three-volume set Ruth had bought me for Christmas. Chose the Fitzrovia & Bloomsbury Walk, starting from Warren Street tube station. The area known as Fitzrovia apparently used to be owned by the Fitzroy family (the Dukes of Grafton), hence the name ‘Fitzrovia’ and the cluster of streets named after the family (Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy Square). Interestingly, ‘Euston’ (as in the road and station close by Fitzrovia) is also connected with the Fitzroy family, as 'Earl of Euston' is one of the Duke of Grafton’s subsidiary titles. Euston is (apparently) a village in Suffolk, close to Euston Hall which is the Duke’s seat.

Fitzroy Square

Noted Pollock’s Toy Museum, though didn’t attempt to go in. Nipped down Chenies Street to view the funny little round buildings labelled the ‘Eisenhower Centre’ - I've noted these before but didn’t know the history behind them. Apparently the buildings are one of the surface entrances to a deep-level shelter built during WWII. Fascinating stuff … the reference to Eisenhower is because the tunnels were apparently equipped to be his London headquarters during the war (though I'm not sure whether he actually ever spent time there).

Houses in Bedford Square

The walk passed through Bedford Square and along Bloomsbury Way to the junction with Kingsway and Southampton Row, where I stopped to peer through the gates leading down to the Kingsway Tramway Subway. Another interesting find – I’d never heard of this. There’s some footage here of a tram actually going down into them (the trams stopped in the early 1950s). Would have taken a photo but felt a bit self-conscious standing essentially in the middle of the road.

Stopped briefly at a Caffè Nero and then headed north via Doughty Street, observing the Georgian town houses pointed out in the book. Walked through St George’s Gardens, an old graveyard with a ‘hidden away’ air, though there were quite a few people sitting or walking in it.

St George's Gardens

Skipped the rest of the route in the interests of returning to the theatre to meet Ruth. We had been going to have dinner in London but weren’t hungry enough so returned to Reading and had dinner at the Valpy Street Bar & Bistro, the current incarnation of the former 'Chronicles', where we went for my 40th birthday dinner, and subsequently for drinks for Ruth's 40th in 2013, when it was called 'Valentino's'. On the current occasion it was busy and we only just got a table, in rather a crappy position next to a loud party. Can’t actually remember what we ate. Think I had some sort of veggie gnocchi.