Wandering to Windermere

We'd arrived in England on Monday afternoon, so on Wednesday morning it seemed far too soon to take Amy and Lukas back to Oxenholme Station so they could take the train to Manchester for their flight to Germany, but I must say we managed to squeeze a lot into a short visit.

That afternoon, Jay and Sasha would be driving Libby all the way to Manchester, which was not a road I would have been ready to retrace, but Jay is young enough to enjoy driving a lot more than me.  He and Sasha were happy to have a chance to check out the music scene in that city famous for its football (soccer) team, Manchester United.

Before they left for the big city, Libby treated us to lunch at Baldry's Tea Room, across the road from Tweedies, where we'd had dinner the prior night.

For me, the trip to the train station had been enough driving on the wrong side of the tight roads for a while.  When Jay's car left the driveway, the rest of us were happy to hang out at the cottage, playing Monopoly, which Emma had just learned while in Scotland. For Emma, the best parts of the trip seemed destined to be the chance to hang out with the family playing games, but we would strive to change that the next day.

We made dinner at home using pre-prepped food purchased at Co-op, a very reasonably priced small grocery chain with an outlet in Grasmere, which at least for me was also a relaxing shift of gears.  

Still not adjusted to the time change, I was watching some forgotten British TV show that made little sense to me when Jay and Sasha returned home around midnight.

The next day would be Jay and Sasha's last full day with us, so we decided to take a short roadtrip to Lake Windermere. 

Gina said she preferred to take the bus over driving, probably intuiting that I really didn't want to get behind the wheel, because she really is extremely caring and considerate of other people, much like my mother used to be.  So I went with her, and only Jay needed to drive.

We left a little before the others and set up a designated meeting place near a tiny restaurant called Graze, which had a highly-rated gluten-free and vegan menu.

Gina paid for roundtrip bus fare for both of us on what turned out to be a double-deck, hop-on/hop-off bus between Lake District villages.  I always like to hear a little background about an area we're visiting as we ride.

The narrator said that in World War II, Sunderland Flying Boats were manufactured on the shores of Lake Windermere, which would allow these sea planes ample water surface for take-off and landing.

The factory had originally been built in Rochester, Kent, on the east coast of England, in 1937.  That location across the narrow Channel from Europe had proven to be too vulnerable to Nazi bombing, so in 1941, the Brits moved production to Lake Windermere, a large inland body of water in the Lake District.  Deep in the interior, it could be more easily defended.

They built a new settlement called Calgarth Estate for the factory workers.  By the end of 1942, Calgarth not only had stores and a school but its own football team.  This was another reminder to me of how so many things that seem brand new soon have the feel of permanence.

After the war ended in 1945, there was no need to build war planes for defending convoys of British ships from German U-Boats, and the factory soon closed.  The local community, of course, didn't want to see their lives uprooted and jobs lost, but times change.  A short reprieve kept the buildings open as storage until 1949, and then it took two years to relocate the buildings.  Just like that, a factory town had come and gone.

It was wonderful spending some alone time with Gina on the bus, much as we had done many times when she was a young girl and I would be driving her home from our Wednesday evenings or Saturdays together.  Back then, she would sometimes pretend to fall asleep just before we arrived at her home so that I'd carry her inside and tuck her into bed.

We both stayed awake on the bus ride.  We soon met up with the others and were having lunch at Graze, which had some rather odd dishes like the Turkish eggs that both Laszlo and I ordered, as well as the vegan and gluten-free options.  We all enjoyed the meal before heading out to wander through Windermere.

First stop was the World of Beatrix Potter, which had strong childhood memories for Sasha, who earlier bought some Beatrix Potter books for Emma.  We didn't pay for admission toe the "exerience," but we looked around the shop a bit.

At the lake, I asked about renting a boat, and the chap said his boats only held six passengers, but he added that we could go to another area and ask about the Charlotte, a boat that would hold seven.

We quickly reached consensus to give it a try, and soon we were speeding across the water like James Bond in racing boat.

Okay, maybe not quite that thrilling, but if the governor on the engine hadn't kept us down at 5 MPH, I'm sure we would have revved up the engine and made more than a few narrow escapes, especially when Emma took the wheel.

She had a big smile on her face, and she later proudly wrote in her travel journal that her Nana had said she was even an better boat driver than her Uncle Jay!

After our boat ride, we went to The Flying Pig, a handsome pub we'd seen on our stroll to the lake where they advertised the daily special ale for 3 pounds a pint.

I can't say the ale was full-bodied or particularly flavorful, with strong nose of the region, but it was refreshing to sip at the outdoor table on what had become a surprisingly sunny afternoon.  In fact, this whole week, rain had been predicted in the Lake District, but we really had very accommodating weather most of the time.  When the sprinkles did come, they seemed like a welcome change of pace, an opportunity to relax in our cozy surroundings.