One thing about the UK that you just have to love.
Its something that both us B's don't really get the full effect of in our home countries. That is a full four seasons each and every year, OK so summer might be brief and somewhat disappointing but it's there. Our favourite, mostly because its non-existent at home, is Autumn, and we've seen it like no where else in the Lakes. The colours on the trees are vibrant and varied, the sound of all the crumpled leaves under foot as you run and jump and kick them around is exactly as you would imagine. The only problem we have is that it all happens very quickly, blink and you'd miss it, we're running around camera in hand trying to capture all the changes in our landscape. It's great fun, even if it is getting a bit chilly.
We were lucky enough to have Mum and Dad visit recently, over B2's birthday. We had a great time showing off all our favourite spots in the Lakes and even discovering a few new ones.
We stayed in one of the Cottages at the Masons Arms, it was entertaining, we had wind storms, blackouts and late night visits from 'happy' members of staff. Yes J we mean you!
We visited Beatrix Potters house, Cartmel Priory, which was amazing, lots of little villages and of course our favourite, Sizerge Castle.
We had a few days earlier this month to take a little road trip. We headed to Carlisle for a couple of days. We stopped on the way at Keswick to look at the stone circle and visit the Pencil Museum, yes pencil. More interesting than it sounds.
We visited the 900 year old Carlisle Castle. Carlisle has always been a fortress and was still occupied by soldiers until 1959. The history of the castle is amazing and really deserves more space than we're able to give it. Mary Queen of Scots was a prisoner in the Castle from May 1567. There are fantastic stone carvings on the castle walls done possibly by prisoners, bored soldiers or a resident priest, 1480's style Graffiti.
While in the north we also visited Hadrian's Wall and Housesteads Roman Fort. Hadrian's Wall is the most important monument built by the Romans in Britain. Its purpose was to separate the Romans and the Barbarians (which is what the Romans called people beyond their boundaries) It took over a decade to build and was the North West Frontier of the Roman empire for nearly 300 years. The Wall was not like a medieval town wall, built to protect a community, its was more like the Berlin Wall. It ran 73 miles across the country and was used as a demarcation line. Lines like this still exist, The Armistice Line between North and South Korea, The Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel and of course the Peace Walls separating Catholic and Protestant Neighbourhoods in many Irish cities.
Most of Hadrian's Wall is no longer visible, but along its length are many visible Roman sites. We're looking forward to walking the 80 Roman Miles along the wall when the weather starts to improve.
We recently moved house, from the small village in the middle of nowhere, to this little cottage in the furthest reaches of nowhere. If you discount the fact that in reality we live in a car park, and just focus on the romance, we are surrounded by fields and woodland, with cows and sheep as our closest neighbours. It's very quiet and peaceful, with lots of new walking tracks to explore. We have a nice pub in walking distance (other than the obvious one), what's not to like.
And with views like this to wake up to every morning, we think we've lucked out. We can't wait to watch the colours change from greens, to yellows and reds, then brown and eventually white. Yes we are expecting snow!
On one of our days out Geo-caching with Friend we came across Holker Hall. Another stately home now open to the public, there are so many of them around decorating the countryside. This particular house we spent time eating lunch and walking the park, we didn't go into the house (have to leave some things for another time). We found herds of deer, hundreds of them.
After admiring them for half an hour or so, we quickly realised, its game season and at only a few minutes from home these beautiful animals will probably be visiting a plate near us very soon!
And I'll leave you with that, until next time, B1 and B2.
Check this out!
http://uk.movember.com/mospace/1904548/
