A Traditional Week

 Previously on one of our day trips we visited Coniston and the Ruskin Museum. Named after the 19th century art critic and social reformer. On a more recent day out we decided to visit Brantwood, Ruskins home on the shore of Coniston Water. On arrival at the house we were treated to a 20 minute video about John Ruskin, his philosophies and life. A lot more interesting than we were expecting.
He was it seems one of the most important people of the 19th century.

As well as being one of the most acclaimed art critics of his time, Ruskin was passionate about the plight of the poorer classes of Victorian England. He travelled the country lecturing  and spent his days writing letters to prominent industrialists and politicians. He recommended that the state should underwrite standards of service and production, with government training schools to promote education and health. Ideas such as minimum fixed wages, pensions for the elderly and destitute and government health care have since been incorporated into our everyday life, although not until long after Ruskins death
OK enough of the history lesson, we spent our day at Brantwood .wandering the house and gardens. Ruskin designed the house to take advantage of the beautiful lake views. His study, dining room and bedroom looked out to the lake at every possible angle.

 The gardens are also designed to use all the land had to offer to its full potential. There was an ice cave, in which ice was kept and distributed to the entire community.
The creek through the garden was dammed into a series of ponds to irrigate the land. Very clever and made a good mirror.
There were walking tracks, sculptures and different gardens all over the estate and we had a great time discovering them all.
If you would like to further study the life of John Ruskin, there is some interesting and less biased information to be found on Wikipedia. We thought some slightly inappropriate for publishing in a family friendly blog.

 This is the amazing view from the dining room and bedroom of Brantwood.

 This is Brantwoods  personal jetty, where the Gondola and ferry services dock. There was also a small man made harbour, built by Ruskin himself.
A man of many talents.

 One late night after our evening meal, B2 found a new house mate curling up in our garden. We named him Henry and tried to make friends. Not the most sociable of friends, we found out that when he wants to run he can run really fast.

We were also lucky enough to have a day off recently that coincided with the annual county show. Luckily our friends J and H also had the day off so it was a great group outing.
The Westmorland County Show has been held every year for the past 212 years. It was a very wet, windy and definitely muddy day. Our borrowed Wellingtons were definitely a necessity.
We watched the cows, pigs and sheep being judged and then sampled to losers in the food tent. Ha ha ha.
There was every type of tractor imaginable, quad bikes, hunting lectures and sheep dog demonstrations. We even watched a comedy sheep show and eventually found the beer tent. YAY.

All in all a great day out and a fun couple of weeks.
Hopefully the next few will be just as eventful.



This horse really knows how to jump, and it wasn't even the winner.






Until next time, B1 and B2

 When we first moved to the Lake District we went for a long walk in the hills behind our house. Long, mostly because we got lost, yes again. You may remember reading about it. During that long walk we found some curious tracks in the hills, curious at the time because it was dry, and they were deep? Recently we realised exactly what the were when we went Quad-biking with some friends from work. They were mini 4WD tracks!
 It was great fun, adrenaline pumping and very muddy.

 The following weekend we decided a bit of indoor excitement was in order, mostly due to the crazy English summer weather. eg. it was raining once again.
We visited our local bobbin mill. We say local because this once was a thriving industry in the Lakes and there were about 65,  in the district. This was due to the fast moving streams and abundance of coppice woods, as well as the demand from the Lancashire Cotton Mills. At Stott Park as well as at most of the other mills logs were placed on a peeling horse and the bark was hand peeled by children from the work houses, orphans mostly, peeling 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. The children were given no pay or education, only a roof over their heads and two meals a day. At the age of 12 the boys were 'allowed' to begin a five year apprenticeship. The mill was abandoned in 1971 when plastic bobbins became the norm. Until this time the mill functioned as it had for the previous 150 years. The only change being from water to steam power, and that is exactly how we saw it, working on steam. We could go on for pages, but lucky for you we won't.

 We also decided to visit Hill Top, Beatrix Potters former home. She left it to the National Trust with strict instructions as to how all her belonging were to be displayed. Its amazing, and seems as though the writer has just stepped out for a quick walk, you can see all the influences to her books throughout the house and village, including the Village Pub, The Tower Bank Arms. The pub featured as the small Inn in the Tale of Jemima Puddleduck.
The house was filled with not only Beatrix art, but also that of her brother Bertram, also an accomplished painter. Its disappointing we weren't able to take any photos inside we would have loved to show you all.                                                                                                                            

Having to drop our car in recently for its MOT, we decided to make a day of it. One of our flat mates came along for a day of Geo-caching. We ended up walking about 10 miles, yes we got lost again. We had lunch at an amazing little pub, goes to show you should never judge a book by its cover. Found 5 geo-caches, bringing us up to just under 100. Yes we know its geeky. In the pub the locals told us about the fairy stairs, a natural rock formation in the woodland nearby. Legend has it that if you can make it to the top with out touching the sides, you will see a fairy, we all failed. Oh yeah, and we saw deer!

Coming home during one of our split shifts, we and our before mentioned flat mate, decided to stop off and walk up Gummers How, its the best view of the lake around. Mainly so we could get an ice-cream on the way back down.
B2 decided to go geo-hunting and came back with this snake instead, scary.
B1 got charged by a hairy, giant cow, also scary.
The many wild life experiences we have had are amazing. But the ice-cream lady was no where to be seen when we arrived back at the bottom, which was very, very disappointing.

Until next time, B1 and B2.