Walking the Cumbria Way

We had such a lovely week, I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the simplicity of it all. The weather was unbelievably kind, we only had an hours light rain the whole time, and this is the Lake District we are talking about!

Our days fell into a pattern of getting up, eating breakfast, then donning rucksacks and walking out of the door, stopping to eat/drink/admire the view when we felt like it until we reached our destination where we located the village shop to stock up on supplies for the next day, found our B&B, ate our evening meal and fell into bed tired but happy, ready to get up the next morning and start all over again - no distractions, just wonderful scenery and peacefulness, no internet and no mobile signal (I even used one of the old fashioned red phone boxes to call DD one evening).It was just so lovely to get away from it all I haven't wanted to go on the computer since I came back, trying to preserve the feeling.

We have a heap of photo's but blogger would throw a fit if I put in as many as I would like to so here are a couple of my favourites

Langdale Valley

Looking across Elterwater to the Langdales

Eagle Crag

We stayed in a diverse range of accomodation from the old to the new, in proper hotels and peoples spare rooms, but my favourite was Robinson's Place Farm

It is a traditional Lakeland working sheep farm built in the 17th century and is owned by the National Trust. Vicky could not have made us more welcome, the room was large, comfortable and spotless, and I immediately felt very much at home.
It was lovely to chat with her and I would have liked to stay longer, but with a LONG days walking ahead we had to leave. Interestingly though, we talked about shearing and I was suprised to hear that a fleece only fetches 2p per kilo for dark colours and 4p per kilo for light, and they only get a kilo from each sheep (if they are lucky), then the carrier charges 7p per fleece to 'load them on the wagon'. Vicky's husband does his own shearing but if a contract shearer is used, they charge £1 per sheep (plus food)- so whichever way you look at it, the farmers are working at a loss. As a knitter, looking at the price of British yarn, this seems incredibly unfair.
It wasn't suprising then to see this in the corner of the lounge
all manner of wooly jumpers handknit from Herdwick fleece ready for sale.

To be honest I was suprised at just how much I enjoyed the week and we both came home physically tired but emotionally rested and when I start to feel a little stressed at work I shall just look at my screen saver and imagine I am here again, sitting on the side of Derwent with just DH, the map and my flask......