Potter and Pottery

We had planned to stay home and relax the following today - but when we woke up to bright sunshine and warm temperatures, we decided to strike while the iron was hot and head out for another full day.

Our first stop wasn't too far from where we're staying.  Wetheriggs Craft Centre joins a bunch of artists and their wares under one roof. Visitors can come and walk through and watch the artists at work while browsing their shop.  The shops we walked through were Pots and Pine and Romantic Ceramic (this was my favourite).  The Centre also has an animal rescue centre and a newt pond.  They also have the original beehive kiln which was massive.  The place is steeped in history and it was a treat to get to read about some of it.  We merely scratched the surface of the activities offered at the centre but I was pretty excited to get to see Peter Rabbit.

We arrived at Bowness-on-Windemere without much difficulty, but getting a parking space for the museum was like running a gauntlet.  The museum was fun and really well done and through the eyes of a 7-year-old, would have been absolutely magical.  They had scenes from the stories recreated throughout the tour and provided some info on Beatrix Potter, her life, her love of animals and the English countryside.  Quite a few of her stories were written in picture letters to her nieces and nephews and many others were based on animals she kept on her little farm.  She did in fact, have a Peter Rabbit, a Benjamin Bunny, a Jemima Puddleduck, and the two bad mice. 

In order to maximize the use of our beautiful parking spot, we spent some time walking around the town, eating ice cream cones with Cadbury Flakes stuck in them, and eating fish and chips (yet again) down by the lake.  Isaiah had fun sitting and playing on the grassy hillside, although it made sitting up a bit interesting because of the steep slope.

We took a different road home which was quite an adventure.  We never got lost, but British roads are scary.  Although they are supposedly wide enough for two cars, they really only fit about one and a half.  The drive allowed us to see the beauty that is the Lake District, but the roads are winding and hilly and don't allow an inch on either side.  This, however, does not seem to bother Brits one bit.  They don't slow down at all for oncoming traffic and aren't concerned about blind corners or frightened tourists.

Fish & Chips, Famous Cars and Well-Trained Sheep

After a leisurely morning and a frosted-flake breakfast, we headed for Keswick.  This was a great little village with all sorts of neat shops.  One was a Tea Pottery.  They had piano teapots, car teapots, marmite teapots.  Nearly anything you could want to make tea in - they had a teapot for it.  The main attraction in Keswick, however, was the World Famous Motor Museum.  We got to see a bunch of famous rides including the General Lee from Dukes of Hazard, K.I.T. from Nightrider, and the piece de resistance, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.   Keith bought a small model.  It was a pretty cool place.  After a fish and chips lunch (the best fish and chips we've had thus far), we decided to skip the Lakeland Pencil Museum (no joke) and headed down the road to the Lakeland Sheep and Wool Visitors Centre.  I have never heard of anything like this before.  After spending some time in the gift shop deciding what sheepish things to purchase, we took our seats and waited for the real show to begin.  We were thrilled as one by one a sheep would appear from a doorway, and march up a podium and take his place while a lady told us information about what breed they were, where they were found, how long they've been in the UK and the various pros and cons of the breed.  We also learned the difference between beef and dairy cows and watch a sheep dog herd huge white geese around the stage.  One goose kept wiping out on the sawdust.  At the end of the show we were able to go up on stage and pet the cows, sheep and dogs and a couple of little kids got to help bottle feed a lamb (who practically throttled the kids as they tried to pull against the lamb's suckling).  Our favourite sheep was a Ryeland - who we nicknamed Muttonhead.

Whitehaven was our next destination - away to the west coast.  It was raining when we got there and despite the weathershield over Isaiah, we were both cold and windswept by the time we left.  Keith got some great shots of the ocean (which we hope will do it some justice).  We were able to walk way out on to a pier where the lighthouse stood and took in the bay at low tide and the ocean crashing against the breakwall on the other.  It was worth it, in spite of the wind and rain.

  We retired to our lodge happy to be home, but feeling great about our busy and successful day. 

 

Bicycles to Woolies

The B&B in Thrisk was easier to find than we expected, eventhough I missed our exit off the highway and we came in through the back roads.  It was so quaint.  It was a low stone building covered in creeping ivy with a lovely country English garden with arbours and fountains.  It was the type of house Thomas Kinkade would paint. The field across from the house was dotted with sheep and they had a brick stable with two horses.  Sam, the black lab, met us at the gate.  The room was spacious and the hosts were friendly and open.  Isaiah was so happy to be out of his car seat and out of his stroller he didn't want to sit down at all.  Fortunately, it was a relatively baby-proof room so he could crawl and pull himself up on whatever he wanted.  I still managed to spill grape juice on the linen night table cloth.  That's the third time Tide-to-Go has come in handy on our trip already. We curled up on the bed, watched a Scrubs episode and ate our dinner.  Isaiah ate Cheerios.

In the morning we enjoyed yet another wonderfully prepared Full English Breakfast.  For those of you unfamiliar with what this breakfast includes let me explain: 1 egg, either poached or fried over easy, toast (served in a toast rack), 1 fried tomato, baked beans, fried mushrooms, back bacon, and sausage.  In Cambridge, Isaiah was so tired he slept right through out breakfast, but in Thirsk, he was wide awake and made eating a bit troublesome.  After we packed up and took a quick walk through the garden, we headed off for the James Herriot Museum about 15 minutes away.  This was the highlight of our trip for me so far.  It was market day in Thirsk so the town was very hustle-bustle.  The museum was fantastic.  It is set in the original Skeldale House where James (Alf Wight) really came to work for Siegfried (Don Sinclair) and his brother Tristan (Brian Sinclair).  It really helped us learn about the "real" James Herriot and his life, as well as the background to so many of his stories.  The gift shop didn't have the sort of souveniers I had hoped it would, but we still found a few momentos to bring back home.  We walked around their cobbled marketplace and I couldn't help but notice how different the items being sold were from those described by Herriot in the 1930's and 40's. I really wanted to see the china merchant, plying his teacups on the town ladies while Tristan's run-away pigs trotted passed.  We bought out lunch at a little sandwich shop and found a bench to sit and eat right across from the church where James and Helen (or Alf and Joan) were married.

 

From Thirsk we were headed to Penrith in the Lake District.  We took a small break at Barnard Castle. After navigating the city centre packed with people on market day, we were disappointed to see the castle was a ruin and the price of admission but we still enjoyed taking pictures of the outside and stretching our legs.  We arrived at the resort around dinner time on Saturday.  We love our little lodge.  It has two floors and is self-catering which has worked out really well for us.  After we brought in our luggage we drove into Penrith for groceries and spent a quiet evening at home.

The Beginning of our Journey

In the beginning was the flight.  Travelling with small children is awesome in a lot of respects; special lines for check-in and security at the airport, pre-boarding, special treatment, and these neat bassinets that fit into the wall if you're sitting in the front row.  Isaiah did quite well sleeping in it throughout the flight.  If only they made those for big people.  Sleeping in coach airplane seats is not so easy.  Especially when you can see the first classers in their seats that look like something straight out of Star Trek.  They were seriously cool.  Despite this, Keith still managed to get a few hours of sleep.  I managed about 20 minutes.   When we landed, we determined to do the first day on adrenaline J.   Praise the Lord that all of our bags made it to the UK and our rental car pick up was problem-free. 

 

The first roundabout experience was a bit funny in a frustrating and unfortunate kind of way.  We had just cleared the guard in the rental car pick-up place and merged with traffic when the roundabout jumped into the road.  Keith took the first exit.  We ended up right back into the rental car parking lot and had to through the guard again - except this time there was a huge line and it took ten minutes to get back through the guard.  By the end of the first day - we must have gone through two dozen roundabouts and barely think twice about them now.

 

Amazingly, we didn't even get lost until we got into Bletchley.  It's interesting that neither of the two people we stopped to ask for directions really had any idea where they were themselves.  When we arrived, Brian met us at the door and we were soon greeted by Aunt Shirley, Uncle Sam and Uncle Andrew as well.  They have a sweet little brick home on a very tidy street.  They have a lovely garden in the back that Uncle Sam landscaped himself.  Andrew and Aunt Shirley briefly re-capped their trips to America.  We ate biscuits and drank tea and coffee.  Socks, the dog, meandered through the living room as we conversed.  It was a brilliant time.

 

The spire of the Olney Chapel was our next beacon.  Olney is where John Newton and William Cowper lived next door to one another and wrote hymns.  Newton, an ex-slave trader, wrote Amazing Grace.  We visited the Newton and Cowper museum.  It was pretty interesting, especially the rooms devoted to Newton.  Olney was also fun because it was market day.

 

Our next stop was Cambridge.  I started to feel the tiredness on this leg of our journey, but fortunately it was a relatively short one.  We almost found our first B&B on the first try.  In our defence, the house number was nearly impossible to see.  Our hostess was a bit frazzeled when we arrived but she was pleasant enough and showed us around.  We got settled and headed out for a walk to the city centre and university.  Isaiah retreated to sleep - the poor guy wasn't sure what was going on.  We've decided the Cambridge is the land of bicycles.  Old and new with huge, let me repeat, HUGE baskets on the front.  And not just on the girl bikes either.  And not just on student or old people bikes.  Everyone rides bikes and nearly everyone has a huge basket.  It was a beautiful city.  Nearly everything was closed, other than the food shops, but we made some mental notes of what we wanted to see the following day.  We were sad to discover that all of the colleges were closed to the public because it was examination time for the students.  We did get to see a fair amount of the grounds and outer buildings.  We also got to enjoy the market and the Cambridge University Press Bookshop.  I found a lovely tea shop and another artsy store where I did a bit of shopping.

We decided to skip York and drive straight to Thirsk.  Isaiah had a melt down along the way so we decided to take a detour into Ripon to see the chapel.  We weren't entirely sure at first if the church was still in use.  We picked up some pamphlets on the way out, but we were both left with the feeling that the church was just a shell the town was trying to keep up, but that it really had no life in it.  We were disappointed.  We picked up some food for dinner at the grocery store where we had parked.  Well, at least I thought we parked there.  I took Isaiah out to the car to start his dinner while Keith found a washroom.  Keith appeared just as Izer and I finished our third lap of the parking lot and panic was setting in that our car had been stolen.  It wasn't.  We hadn't parked at the grocery store, but in a parking lot just below.  Oh Darcie.