Cumbria

(Lesley) We are in the Lake District with John’s folks.  We get to hike and walk everyday.  We have a good walk from our Caravan to Broughton-in-Furness, the town where we can go to the butcher, the post office and to buy our Kendal Mint Cake.  It is about 3 miles there, 3 miles back.  The first day, it was close to 5 each way because the footpaths are hard to follow.  We took a rather circuitous route.  We found a big blackberry patch in the park in town.  We have picked there twice and there are still plenty.  I love picking and eating blackberries; they are great for breakfast on cereal with yogurt. 

Much to Mhari and Ann’s delight there are sheep everywhere.  We hear them out our windows early in the morning and late at night.  We have beautiful big windows so we can watch them anytime.  Just as the sun sets, there is usually one or two standing solo on the top of the fell (hill).  We see their silhouettes against the sky; it is quite a nice sight. Mhari had taken her book out and sat amongst the sheep hoping for a chance to pet one.  (They are a shy lot).  The sheep up by the Fell road don’t even move over when we go by in the car so Mhari has tried to pet one, through the window, but her arm wasn’t long enough to reach down to the one laying, relaxing on the side of the road.   Speaking of driving, the roads here are so narrow!  There are passing places (just a slight widening of the road) every 100 meters or so as there is no space for oncoming cars to pass should they encounter each other on the road.  Sometimes the hedges brush both sides of the car at the same time, add to that the dry stonewalls, higher than car height, about a meter to either side of the car.  I drove yesterday all the way to Ulverston.  Pretty impressive considering I felt like I was driving from the passenger’s seat, and the gearshift was where the door handle should have been. Once we got into the town, I had John take over, to keep me from driving up any streets on the wrong side of the road.  He has taken so well to the driving here.  This makes sense, given that this is where he learned to drive, and it is in Canada where everything is backwards for him.  John is very appreciative of how well the English drive.  The density of drivers and the lack of space mean that drivers here have no choice but to be considerate, careful and predictable in their driving.  If Winnipeggers could do likewise, given the space we have, accidents would be rare.

Mhari saw some Roman ruins with John’s folks the other day. She did a project on Rome last year so I think she will actually put something on her blog about them.  She has been so busy soaking everything up and visiting that her blog still says we are in the Toronto airport.

Sam has been keeping up to John no problem on the hikes.  He is a mountain goat!  He takes big steps like his father and sprints past him to be the first to the peaks.  I can go forever, but not at their speed on the uphills.  I take smaller steps and stop to take pictures; I use the camera as my excuse for being 10 steps behind.

Sam also enjoys at least 3 breakfasts every morning.  He has a few bowls of cereal, followed by toast with Ann’s marvelous marmalade or Stanley’s jam.  Sometimes he then has a cooked breakfast with eggs and beans if they are offered.  And while hiking, I keep extra food in my bag to hand to Sam and Mhari if they start to fade. I had brought the extra Vector and Cliff bars that we had at home and they have come in quite handy. 

Everything is English here, so there is no problem with the language like in Iceland.  However linguistically there are some challenges for a simple Canadians.  There are: fells, dales, tarns, gills, becks, hows, haws, cairns, crags, scars, and there is bracken everywhere.  Fortunately for us John’s dad, Stanley, is very knowledgeable about many things, the roots of words being one of his particular interests.  Apparently most of the words I just listed are Scandinavian so would be well understood in Iceland.  No point counting the sheep to get to sleep here because that is done in Welsh.  The kids are learning a lot from discussions with Ann and Stanley, their grandparents.  As yesterday was the first day of school for Sam and Mhari’s classmates back home in Winnipeg, we felt we should formally start some home schooling so we had Mhari work on some spelling. Sam picked up and read two more Horrible Histories Books.  There are lots of titles here that weren’t available in Canada.