The Lakes again

Blogging after the event again … decided after our Lakes trip last year that most of us were enthusiastic for another one, and after a few false starts, booked Applegarth at Braithwaite, via Sally’s Cottages. It’s a typical Victorian Lakeland stone house – although this wasn’t obvious from the description, it’s actually a semi that’s been converted to a six-bedroom holiday let by dint of knocking through the second floor, so holidayers have half of the ground and first floors of the house, and the whole of the second floor. The distribution of the bedrooms proved quite convenient, with three on the first floor for Dave and Hazel, Nia and Alys, and Huwie in his own room; and three on the second floor for Mum and Dad, Ray and me.

Applegarth

Minor downsides of the property: 1) as a consequence of the alterations to increase the number of bedrooms, the kitchen is too small for the number of people the property sleeps; 2) the second floor rooms were a bit tired-looking, though the rest of the property was nice; 3) although there was an enclosed garden, it wasn’t actually enclosed directly from the back door, leading to a constant need to keep an eye out that toddler Huw wasn’t heading down the drive towards the road. The major downside was the ropey water pressure to the second floor, lending an exciting uncertainty to the whole business of taking a shower. As bathrooms are important to me this would probably be sufficient to put me off staying there again. No big deal, hopefully, as the area is awash with holiday lets.

However … on the whole it was lovely, despite the above. (And I should note that all the reviews on Sally's Cottages' website seem nothing but complimentary - so it's entirely possible that I'm just a bit of a fusspot.) Really pleased with the location - Braithwaite is a well-situated village for a whole range of walks and outings, and has three pubs and a useful village shop. And we were unbelievably lucky with the weather, for pretty much the whole week.

Thursday 18 April

I booked a half day from work and Ray arrived at my flat around 3pm. He had offered to drive me as it was roughly on his route and we weren’t sure how much parking we would have at the holiday let. As last year, we had booked a Premier Inn pit stop at the Stoke/Trentham Gardens hotel. We arrived early evening, had a G&T in the bar and a nice dinner at Joe’s Kitchen, opposite the hotel.

Joe's Kitchen

Friday 19 April

I got up for an early walk around the bits of the Trentham estate that are accessible from the hotel.

Piece of something or other

Old gates on Stone Road

We set off from the PI around 9am and made our way through heavy traffic up the rest of the M6 to Penrith. Stopped at Tebay services – the last M6 services before the Penrith turn off – after reading reviews of various services on Motorway Services Online (we were bored). Although it was heaving with bodies due to its being Good Friday, it certainly manages to seem more like a National Trust visitor centre than a service station. We didn’t go into the farm shop but did buy takeaway tea and cake from the café which we ate in Ray’s van looking at the quite pleasant view.

As we couldn’t access our holiday let until 4:30pm, we parked just outside Braithwaite and walked from there into Keswick, a walk of about 2½ miles each way. Keswick was heaving with people and we were glad we hadn’t attempted to park the car there. We had lunch at a café and Ray bought some insoles for his new boots. I bought a coaster from the adorable ‘Herdy’ shop.

Walk to Keswick from just outside Braithwaite, and back

Saturday 20 April

We walked into the village and bought ice creams from the village shop.

Dave and Hazel decided to take the girls to tackle Cat Bells, so Ray and I tagged along while Mum and Dad stayed at the house with Huw. In the event I only made it about halfway up due to not feeling 100%, so had quite a pleasant sit with a lovely view of the lake while the others successfully scrambled up to the top. Four-year-old Alys looked adorable in a flowery dress and new little walking boots. Dave has blogged about the walk here.

Afterwards we returned to Braithwaite and had drinks at the Royal Oak.

Derwentwater from the path up Cat Bells

Drinks outside the Royal Oak

Route of my walk up part of Cat Bells. The summit is a way off the bottom of the picture.

Walk up part of Cat Bells, and back

Sunday 21 April

Easter Sunday. And Hannah’s birthday.

Ray and I went out for an early morning walk of four and a half miles or so, taking a route south of Braithwaite into the Newlands Valley, initially along a path that skirts the foot of Barrow and then along a country road, returning via the village of Stair and along a lovely footpath by Newlands Beck. The Newlands Valley is separated from Derwentwater by the range of hills that includes Cat Bells.

Looking back towards Braithwaite

The bridge at Stair

Our route below in red, with start and end points in Braithwaite at the top.

The rest of the day was substantially taken up with Easter eggs. Dave and Hazel set up an Easter egg hunt for the kids in the garden. The children gave Hannah a ‘Happy Birthday’ serenade via WhatsApp. We had roast chicken.

Monday 22 April

Dave and Ray set off early to tackle Helvellyn via Striding Edge. Also mentioned in Dave’s blog post.

Mum suggested a lakeshore picnic for the rest of us. She and Hazel drove into Keswick with the kids and got the Keswick Launch across to the jetty at Hawse End. Dad had been looking less than keen on the boat trip (though we weren’t clear why exactly) so I suggested that he and I walk from Braithwaite to Hawse End to meet the others, a walk of just over three miles each way. The route involved in part the path along Newlands Beck that Ray and I had walked the previous day. We observed (well, Dad observed, and I saw them once he’d pointed them out) lots of pretty little orange-tipped butterflies.

View from our walk

Our outward route from Braithwaite to Hawse End in red:

We met up with the others and had a picnic by the lake. Afterwards Nia climbed a tree and Alys and Huw pottered about by the lakeshore.

Mum with Huwie and Nia

Alys by the lakeshore

Tuesday 23 April

Dave and Hazel took the kids to Whinlatter Forest to do the children’s trail activities there. Mum, Dad, Ray and I set out – Dad driving – to visit the Haig Colliery Mining Museum in Kells, near Whitehaven.

Just as we were driving out of Braithwaite onto the Whinlatter Pass, I decided to Google the opening hours of the museum and was a bit taken aback to get this.

Couldn’t decide whether to convey the ‘Permanently closed’ news to Dad – and I then lost mobile reception so couldn’t do any further research – but chose to assume (wrongly, as it turned out) that he must have done the homework re checking its current status, so kept quiet.

We drove through some somewhat depressed-looking towns and villages towards Whitehaven, and parked at Kells in a none-too-cheery looking and fairly deserted area. We ascertained that the museum had indeed closed. Dad and Ray took a walk to the seafront, in the interests of doing something given that we’d driven all the way there. On reflection – or possibly through subsequently contacting his business partner Steve – Dad discovered that it was the wrong museum altogether anyway. I forget the name of the actual mining museum that’s still open, somewhere else in Cumbria. A trip for another day.

We were keen not to just go straight back to the holiday let, but none of us fancied Whitehaven for a day out so someone – Mum, probably – came up with the idea of visiting Muncaster Castle. We’d never been there as a family on previous Lakes holidays, probably because it would have seemed too far over to the west to make the journey, but as we were already over in that direction it seemed like the opportunity. We spent an enjoyable few hours there walking in the grounds and attending a falconry display. The rhododendrons were in fantastic colour.

Barn owl and its handler

On the return journey, Dad made the surprising decision to take the route over Hardknott and Wrynose Passes. To pinch a quote from Wikipedia:

“[Hardknott Pass], which is the most direct route from the central Lake District to West Cumbria, shares the title of steepest road in England [my emphasis] with Rosedale Chimney Bank in North Yorkshire. It has a maximum gradient of 1 in 3 (about 33%).”

Dad admitted afterwards to having forgotten what the road was like (“I hadn’t!” put in Mum) and his large automatic Volvo proved not too well suited to it. I’ve never driven an automatic car so am not sure whether it’s possible to override the automatic aspect to get the same effect as putting a manual transmission into a low gear. The length of the car was also a problem on the hairpin bends and it was looking to those of us cowering in the back as though we were only just making it around them without getting stuck.

Postscript, re Hardknott’s ‘sister’ steepest road: Mum did once drive down Rosedale Chimney Bank during a holiday in the North York Moors in 1989. She hadn’t known it was coming up so there hadn’t been time to prepare, but notes that at one point the steepness of the descent was such that she lost sight of the car’s bonnet. I don’t recall much in terms of drama, though, so she must have kept a pretty cool head. We were heading for the village of Rosedale Abbey, where we had tea in a café where both of us remember being served by a child on roller skates.

Wednesday 24 April

Dave, Hazel, Dad and Nia went off to climb Haystacks, Nia having been keen for another, more grown up, hill walk. Mum, Ray and I took the two younger children to the same playground in Fitz Park in Keswick that we went to on last year’s trip. They seemed to enjoy themselves and we had tea and cake in the café.

In the evening, Ray and I went for a walk to look for evidence of the old railway line that used to carry the Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway. We walked out of Braithwaite to the north and crossed the A66, then turned down the drive to Braithwaite Farm. After passing the various buildings we carried straight on along a footpath. We passed what used to be Braithwaite station building, now a private house. The Wikipedia page has a photograph of it looking rather more derelict back in the 1970s. There are some earlier pictures here.

The former station building at Braithwaite

Between Braithwaite and Keswick, the route of the old railway can be seen on Google Maps as per this snip (beyond Braithwaite, the track bed is used by the A66). However, there proved a limit to what we could see on the ground: this photo was taking looking towards the old railway embankment – the line of trees – but we couldn’t see that there was any public access to it.

Looking towards the railway embankment

We turned north along a beck for a while before crossing back over the A66 at Thornthwaite and returning to Braithwaite along the road. Ray clocked the campsite at Lanefoot Farm as one possibly worth future investigation for possible trips in his camper.

Church at Thornthwaite

Our route in red:

Thursday 25 April

Ray and I spotted Dalehead Tarn on the OS map and decided to do a walk to it, in the interests of having a tarn walk. We parked in the car park by the Honister Slate Mine and took the footpath leading north towards Dale Head. However, it was a colder day than the rest of the week had been and we were decidedly chilly by the time we were about halfway, so after a brief sit, abandoned locating the tarn and returned to the car.

The Honister Slate Mine

Moody view

On the way back, we visited Lingholm and had a warm drink in the lovely café there (in fact we snuck back for brunch the following morning, before leaving the Lakes), as well as a look around the walled garden. We had a wander down to the lakeshore via a snoop at a lovely-looking new holiday let that was under construction at the time.

The Boathouse, Lingholm

The jetty at Lingholm

Ray reading about Beatrix Potter

In the evening, we had a family meal at the Coledale Inn to mark our last day.

Food

In an attempt to curb my sweet tooth, have been doing more home baking recently. This wholewheat banana and walnut loaf went down well with colleagues.

These muesli muffins were also (I thought) pretty nice and formed a robust mid-morning snack with a cup of coffee. Topped with linseed, just in case there weren’t enough seedy bits in them already. Ruth is suspicious of the wholemeal flour with millet seeds, linseeds, cracked wheat and poppy seeds that I am trying to use up (bag just visible on the right of the picture) as she claims it keeps creeping in to recipes where she expects white flour and is solely put there for her to crack her teeth on. None of which is of course true.

Have also found a delicious Delia Smith recipe for peanut butter cookies - halving the amount of sugar in the recipe (also leaving out the actual peanuts, and using smooth peanut butter as I prefer it - OK, so quite a lot of modifications) - but haven't photographed those yet.

At the other end of sweet snacks: Arctic Roll. I had no idea this was even still made. I remember having it occasionally as a child, and perceiving it as a luxurious special treat (or possibly just a respite from Instant Whip), though I don’t think it was something Mum was willing to buy all that often. Ruth and I had a nostalgic slice each, which we enjoyed though almost inevitably with such things, we weren’t as enamoured of it as adults. From an adult perspective, Nigel Slater's reported comment about Arctic Roll tasting of frozen carpet is probably a reasonable summing up, but I do remember that from the point of view of a 1970s child, Swiss roll BUT WITH ICE CREAM IN THE MIDDLE did seem rather thrillingly decadent.

A bit of research suggests that Arctic Roll did in fact cease production, but had a bit of a resurgence following the 2008 recession.

Moving on to savoury foods: I had a go recently at a recipe for saag paneer. The result looked quite pretty but lacked something in the taste.

Finally: bloody marrows. I like courgettes and Ruth and I did grow some a few years back, but I've no idea how people end up with such a glut of them - possibly it's crucial to stick to having only one plant. These somewhat careworn-looking specimens were laid out on the garden table at Mum and Dad's when I visited in August. Mum has evidently made chutney with some of the marrows, but no idea whether that used them all up - I suspect not.

Spot(s) o' culture

‘Into the Blue’ at the V&A

13 August

Admittedly my tastes may be a bit niche, but this was really interesting. Exhibition of the development of swimming pools over the years. Lots about lidos and recent campaigns to restore them. It featured a photo of the Thames Lido, which coincidentally Ray and I had visited again just the previous day.

It was pretty small-scale, tucked away on an upper floor of the V&A (which I had to ask how to get to – the staircases at the V&A each intriguingly only lead to certain floors, so you’ll find yourself on a staircase leading to floors 1, 2 and 4, with the staircase to floor 3 somehow at the other end of the building). I think this Guardian article alerted me to the exhibition. Pics nicked from the exhibition page.

‘Foragers of the Foreshore’ at Oxo Tower Wharf

29 September

This one was only on for a few days in September. Ruth is intrigued by mudlarking, presumably imagining discovery of gold coins, Roman artefacts etc; I am less intrigued by it, pessimistically imagining discovery of rubbish or the odd human torso. This claimed to be ‘the most expansive exhibition on Mudlarking that has ever taken place’. I wasn’t familiar with Nicola White but Ruth follows her on Twitter.

The exhibition itself was quite interesting but hot and crowded, so our visit was fairly brief in the end. Some interesting stuff has certainly been found over the years, though the exhibition did also reference the pitiable Victorian children who'd scoured the Thames' shores trying to actually find stuff to sell.

It was a relentlessly wet day. Afterwards we huddled outside the branch of Caffe Nero opposite for a hot drink. Think Ruth's expression says it all.

I’d often walked past the Oxo Tower but not visited any of the shops or the gallery space there. We had a quick mooch around the shops on the upper levels, though most of them appeared not to open on Sundays.

The mudlarking exhibition was held in Bargehouse, a large building opposite (presumably a former warehouse; no idea how it’s avoided conversion into luxury apartments) that's also part of the Oxo Tower Wharf development. The whole thing’s apparently owned by Coin Street Community Builders, a social enterprise.

Bargehouse has the names of the nine Muses written along one wall, which had me dredging my classical memory banks to enlighten Ruth as to who they were.

‘Other Spaces’ at 180 The Strand

12 October

Came across the exhibition while Googling exhibitions on in London during October, looking for the token something cultural for Helen and I to do on our meetup that weekend. Never heard of this place before. I might have walked past the building before, but certainly wouldn’t have thought it was an exhibition space – it looks like an office block with boarding around the ground floor. Apparently it’s an ‘iconic Brutalist building’ undergoing a transformation into an arts venue.

To get in, we joined a queue stretching around the corner of the building – I’m not great with queues but we agreed to give it a bit of time and see how fast it moved. In the event it moved reasonably quickly. We were then funneled in quite organized fashion through the three rooms, though there was plenty of time to experience each. Once inside, the exhibition was over three rooms containing three separate installations, ‘Our Time’, ‘Vanishing Point’ and ‘The Great Animal Orchestra’. There's a short clip here of the three installations.

I didn’t have my phone on the right setting for taking pictures in darkness, and didn’t like to fiddle about with it too much once we were inside, so these pictures may or may not give a flavour. Here's a review.

Our Time

Vanishing Point

The Great Animal Orchestra

‘Mary Quant’ at the V&A

19 October

This was great. Mum had mentioned quite a while back fancying going to see it – it’s been on since April – but we took until October to get around to arranging it. Fantastically set out on two levels within the V&A’s fashion gallery.

One of the most fun aspects of the exhibition was that there had evidently been a shout out for women to loan their Quant dresses to the exhibition (#WeWantQuant), with the result that in addition to the dresses themselves being on display there were a number of accompanying photographs of the then-girl in question wearing the dress in her parents’ sitting room or back garden, and a bit of the back story as to how she’d come by it.

I’m too young to be able to imagine the impact that Quant had on fashion options for young women, but Mum said that Quant had without doubt influenced the way she dressed in the Sixties. She said that she’d once modelled for a Quant-style pointed haircut while in college, though disappointingly isn’t sure she’s got any photos of it.

Quant’s King’s Road boutique 'Bazaar' was apparently famed for its eccentric window displays. I assume this exhibition mock-up of a woman in a distinctly eccentric pair of trousers with a lobster on a leash was one such.

There was an incredibly varied selection of outfits on show, including a range of PVC rainwear, and a range of shoes. Also some information about the range of ‘Daisy’ dolls, which I hadn’t known about. One exhibit showed some of the range of ‘Daisy’ accessories that were available.

Funky outfits

'

'Daisy' dolls and accessories

After doing the Quant exhibition and lunch, we went up several floors to the ironwork gallery to view the Hereford Screen, installed in Hereford Cathedral in the late nineteenth century and removed from it in 1967 and sold to a museum in Coventry, who couldn’t afford to maintain it so sold it to the V &A. Hard to imagine that it’s likely to return to the cathedral at this stage.

Mum by the Hereford Screen