England: Wordsworth and more Lake District

I should call this trip to England the Literary Friends tour.  After Beatrix Potter's house yesterday, we headed off to William Wordsworth's house today.  I loved this street sign in Hawkshead.  Can you imagine living on Leather, Bag and Putty Street?  Bwahahaha.  I almost wish they hadn't changed it.  But then...I wouldn't get to see a sign labeled "formerly this street had another long ridiculous name."  

I'd come to England hoping to see nature, which in my mind is green.  Even though my favorite season is fall, I'd sort of forgotten that I would get to experience fall by going to England in October.  (The day before I flew, it was almost 80 degrees in Marseille.  And since we don't have any trees, it's hard to see fall colors here...)  Imagine my joy upon seeing this:

Princess William has always wanted to go see Wordsworth's house, so off we went.  It was fascinating!  Upstairs in his bedroom, there was a 200 year old quilt.

You know I knelt down and looked at it as up close as possible without touching it.  So so neat!

This room was lined with old newspapers!

There was a burn mark on the floor where his sister sat down a pail of hot coals.  Oops!  I love seeing a truly human moment from hundreds of years ago, it makes me feel connected to history in my own mess-things-up way.

Here was the paper that served as a sort of passport for him to go to France.  So cool!

The view from his garden, where we sat for a good long while just staring out and reading some of his poems.

In the town of Grasmere.

We popped into this cemetery, because I'm weird and find them beautiful.  Princess William wanted to find Wordsworth's grave (which she did), and as she was looking at it, the church bells began to ring.  They played the song "To God Be the Glory" in its entirety, and I had this happy dance moment praising God for all that He's done in the middle of a random cemetery in England.  Great, great moment.  I'm sure the locals thought I was crazy.

I appreciated that this store would allow me to come in with my muddy boots.

We drove to Keswick.  Let me tell you of my greatest regret/non-regret of my trip.  That drive was one of the most beautiful ones of my entire life.  I stared out the window in awe at the normally-purple heather-covered hills that had turned orange for fall and just soaked in the beauty.  I don't regret that I soaked it all in to such a point that I forgot to take any photos.  I regret that I have no photos.  Google "Lake District in Autumn" to see what I saw.  Oh my.

In Keswick, we stopped for a cream tea.  (Cream tea is tea with a scone with clotted cream.)  Or, as they served it at this place: whipped cream tea.  Haha.  The scone was good even if it was served with whipped cream.

We walked down to the lake in Keswick.

Keswick was a little too touristy for our tastes, after having been in the true countryside previously, so we headed back towards Sawrey to have tea by the fireside at the Tower Bank Arms pub.  We read (and I quilted) and just enjoyed the peacefulness of it, and then had dinner.

The moment I took that picture was the moment I felt my entire body just relax.  I knew I still had 10 days left of vacation.  If the moment in the cemetery had been a happy dance moment, this was a happy exhale moment.  I probably would have slept right there if they would have let me.  

We drove back to Sheffield late that night to sleep for free at Princess William's place.  I wish I could have hiked more in the Lake District, beyond my romp through the sheep pastures the night before, but I hadn't acclimated yet to the temperatures and I was frozen to the bone.  And besides, I wouldn't have traded that still time by the fire for anything.  Next time--I will hike!!!