A warm, overcast and muggy day. We returned to Ambleside to visit Rydal Mount, the house where Wordsworth spent most of his adult life. It has been purchased by his descendents and is now open to the public as well as being used by the family on occasion as a residence - probably more as a holiday home. It is well presented and has a lovely gard...

Back to normal weather. Surprisingly neither of us felt the effects of the unaccustomed exercise yesterday. We had a late start as Tom needed to free up some disk space and clean up one of his memory cards for the camera. While he did this Ruth waited quietly and patiently! We then drove to Dove Cottage at Grasmere, which is where William and hi...

Another overcast day, but warmer, in the low 20s. We headed west today, covering new grounds. Once again along narrow lanes. Tom and Ruth have become used to the need to sometimes back up into a passing space to enable cars to pass. The narrowest lane we have been though was when we passed a walker who pressed against the hedge to let us pass. R...

A wonderful sunny, warm day. Fantastic. We didn't realise how down the weather could make us until we had some sun. We took advantage of it to walk into Buttermere village then around Buttermere, about 5 miles in total. There is mostly a well formed gravel path around the water, but because of all the recent rain, it was under water in places. A...

After breakfast the four of us walked along the lake for as far as we could, then headed inland a bit to the village of Buttermere for mid-morning refreshment. It only started raining as we returned. After Ed and Sue left we drove through the Honiston Pass which has also inclines of 25%, through Borrowdale (a valley), to Keswick. On the way we s...

Time to move, this time to the Lake District. As Tom is still poorly, Ruth actually drove part of the 280 odd miles from Knapwell to Buttermere. The drive took about 6 hours, much of it on the M6 with lots of traffic and the usual rain. When booking accommodation in the area Ruth wanted to avoid the busy and popular tourist places. She certainly...

Yet another rainy overcast day. It's easy to see why the country is so green. Tom is improving but is still not feeling anywhere near 100% so we had a rest day; curled up with books in the lounge room, overlooking the garden, lawn, squirrels, birds and lake. Ed and Sue Greenaway arrived to have dinner and spend the night. We had a large, long di...

Circumpedigated Lake Buttermere -- a grand day out!