Saturday, 16 June 2012 - Beatrix and the Girls

Today dawned wet and grey - worse than usual.  Today was the day the the ladies had set aside as their visit to the home of Beatrix Potter - Hilltop.  Mike and I decided that we wouldn't partake in the literary delights of Ms Potter and decided we would go and check out the nearby village of Hawkshead.

We packed whatever wet weather gear we had, put the address into TomTom and set off.  Like many roads around here, once we got off the main road it became very narrow.  I had horrible visions of meeting a tour bus on one of them, but I think we were just early enough to miss them.  We found Hilltop and dropped the ladies off, agreeing to come back in a couple of hours to pick them up.  Mike and I set of for the delights of Hawkshead.

We found the car park, which was nearly empty because of the time of the morning, and the horrible weather.  We could see where the lakes get their water from.

Hawkshead had several large outdoors shops as well as the normal mix of village and tourist shops.  We sniffed out a nice cafe and spent time in there checking the coffee and the cakes.  They passed our scrutiny.  We went back to the outdoors stores and I bought a rain jacket, and wore it out of the shop.  Some quite good stuff in those shops, and not too expensive.

We went back and picked up the ladies.  They had just finished as we arrived which was just as well as there were no parks available.  We left Hilltop and drve around through Ambleside to Bowness-on-Windermere where we stopped.  We had intended to take a cruise on the lake, but the weather was so bad, and the visibility so poor, that we decided just to do the shops and have lunch.  Which we did.  Shops were interesting (and touristy - but that is what we were).  We found a nice bakery place and grabbed a pie or pasty for lunch, sitting in the shop where it was warm and dry.  Did some grocery shopping (with some bottles of Old Peculier) and set off back home.

Didn't take any photos today (first day on our trip that I didn't take any) - it was too wet, and my camera isn't an underwater model.  Here are a couple of local views from other days.

Two of the locals, with the farmhouse in the background

Sunshine makes things look better - taken from our gate the next morning

Tricia's diary summed today up as:

Very wet day.  Chris and I went to Hilltop.  It was good.  Had lunch in Bowness-on-Windermere.  Quiet afternoon.