The Lake District

This has been a pretty full-on week.  It started with Siobhan's interview at Collingwood College in Camberley, Surrey - a two hour drive from Bristol.  Siobhan set off at 7.30, even though she was not expected at the school until 10.45, as she was awake early and also hoped to talk the school into letting her print some bits and pieces for the class she was to teach.  She had managed to print out the application form the night before on Tony's printer - 45 minutes to print a nine page Word document so trying to print the resources was too daunting.

The receptionist at the school was fantastic; the resource printing was completed well before 10.45.  The 4.5 hour interview process was unlike anything Siobhan has come across before.  The HOD met her at 10.45 and gave her a short campus tour.  Interval was spent in the staff room chatting to some of the other teachers.  While the HOD had already warned her that the class she was to teach weren’t angels, another teacher’s request that she not judge the school by the class she was to teach set the alarm bells ringing!  After interval she went to observe a junior class before being taken to teach the Year 9’s.  They certainly weren’t angels – but they weren’t demons either and it all went well.  So well in fact that the principal offered Siobhan the job during the formal interview after lunch.  Siobhan was hugely relieved, but said she would be unable to accept on the spot.  After all, if Grant didn’t get his job all bets were off!

The result of the digging

Siobhan made a detour to Addlestone (only about half an hour from Camberley) to say hi to Mark, Paula and the girls and collect our post, then hit the road to return to Bristol, where Grant had been working hard in the garden.  While Siobhan was on the road, Grant got a call offering him his job in London so now we both have jobs!  Grant is under a little bit more pressure, as he will have to start within the fortnight while Siobhan’s job doesn’t start until September.

The job offers have changed the shape of the next couple of weeks in terms of our plans.  We shifted our departure to the Lake District to Tuesday, as we thought that having a whole day to explore would be good.  So on Tuesday we packed up our car after lunch and said our farewells to Tony and Ingrid.  We are so grateful for their kindness in letting us use their house in their absence.

The drive to the Lake District (or Windermere where we had booked a B & B) was expected to take about four hours.  In fact, due to an accident on the motorway, it ended up taking us over six hours so we were very glad we had decided to stay an extra night.  The B & B host was very welcoming and not at all put out by our late arrival.  She had all sorts of maps and things handy for us as well as advice on activities for the following day.  We put our bags into our (very small) room and went in search of some dinner.  We found a pub and eventually managed to choose a meal that actually was available (most of the menu wasn’t!).  After all our driving we were pretty weary so we didn’t hang around long.

The next day dawned a bit grey and drizzly so, fortified with a delicious cooked breakfast, we spent the morning answering emails and sorting things that Grant’s employer-to-be needed.  By midday the rain had become intermittent so we took the car down to Bowness (instead of walking) and organised a boat trip up Lake Windermere to Ambleside.  The lake is so pretty and we enjoyed the boat trip.  The rain even held off enough for us to enjoy some of the trip on the top deck.  The water level of the lake is ridiculously high though – the trees at the shoreline are under water and some of the boat houses look suitable only for submarines!  Grant spoke to the boat staff about it and apparently only 48 hours before, the lakeside dock we had used to board the boat had been under six inches of water.  We expect it is again by now, but more on that later.

Rowing boats on the shore at Ambleside

Ambleside is a lovely village, and quite a good size.  The boat captain had told us it was the anorak capital of the world, and it certainly has more sporting/climbing goods stores (of the Kathmandu type) than we have ever seen in one place.  We are told the hills around this area have some of the loveliest tramping in England.  We can’t be sure, as we aren’t yet convinced there actually are any hills.  No. that’s not quite true, as we did walk up a small hill on the outskirts of Ambleside to see some lovely waterfalls before catching our return boat to Bowness.

It had been a very pleasant afternoon, and we decided to round out our evening by have a nice dinner out to celebrate our respective jobs.  We found a nice-looking Chines restaurant and enjoyed a delicious banquet (literally) involving quite a lot of duck.  Yum.

We spent the evening looking up potential places to live, that will make train travel easy for Grant and driving to Camberley easy for Siobhan.  Woking is looking like our best bet, and has the added advantage of being only 10- 15 minutes’ drive from Mark and Paula too.  Unfortunately, we can’t look at anything until we return to Surrey so it is still all just speculation. 

Siobhan woke first the next day, and was excited to note that while the sky was not actually blue, it looked far more promising than the previous day had been.  Sadly, in the time it took to shower the weather closed in again.  Today we were heading north to Edinburgh to visit our friend Nicola, but we (or at least Siobhan) really wanted to visit Beatrix Potter’s home, Hilltop, near Hawkshead.  This was on the other side of the lake, so after another great breakfast we bid our host farewell and loaded to car during a brief dry spell.  We then drove down to the car ferry about halfway down Lake Windermere.  This was great, hardly any waiting required and just £4.30 for the car including both of us. 

Flopsy and Mopsy (Cottontail was out of range)

The drive to Hilltop didn’t take too long, but the attraction was very busy; there is timed entry to this National Trust Property, mostly because of the difficulty of providing sufficient parking.  We had about thirty minutes to wait for our time, so we went to a local teashop.  This had a lovely lawn out the back where three brown bunnies were hard at work keeping the grass short.  Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail, of course!  Sadly our camera doesn’t zoom in well and these wild bunnies certainly didn’t want us getting too close.

It was raining lightly again as we walked up to the actual farmhouse and Grant had left his coat in the car.  He decided it wasn’t too bad, and we got into the house quite quickly after walking through a very pretty cottage garden.  The house has no electricity, and is very dark; Beatrix Potter insisted that the house be displayed as it would have been used and she would never have wasted oil or even candles to produce additional light during the day.  She made do with the daylight, and so must we.  That might be all right on sunny days but we found it quite gloomy.  It is a lovely place though, and Siobhan particularly enjoyed flicking through the copies of Beatrix Potter’s books that were scattered throughout the house.  The Tale of Samuel Whiskers was particular fun as many of the sketches are of the house itself – the upstairs landing and the kitchen especially.  Great fun!

The heavens really opened while we were in the house, so we made slow work of our visit so Grant wouldn’t get too soaked as we returned to our car.  Luckily our ploy worked and we got underway for the rest of our journey.

We saw some truly beautiful views as we made our way north along the shores along the shores of Esthwaite Water, Thirlmere and Derwent Water.  By the time we made the village of Keswick, however, and headed east to the M6, the rain had truly set in.  It was torrential, and stayed that way for over an hour – until we crossed into Scotland, when it cleared nicely.  Not what we were led to expect really.  We reached Nicola’s place in Edinburgh at about 4.45.  She has the top floor flat in a lovely old stone building only 15 minutes’ walk from the city – great for sightseeing but a bit tricky for parking, so after unloading what we needed we drove further afield to park the car and settle in for our next adventure.

Sunshine in Scotland