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the Lake District Drawn by the Lake District's reputation for beauty, we were not disappointed by this green, barren, magnificent, windswept place. Following our guru Rick Steves' advice, we sought lodging out in the countryside away from town.

Looking for dinner in Keswick

Keswick is the town central to the northern lakes where we settled in at a guesthouse about six miles up the Newlands Valley. Chad wanted to know why we would deliberately choose to roost so far from the center of action, but for us, as quiet and quaint as Keswick -- pronounced "Kessick" -- was, staying here was more about the ferny fells and the long vistas. We happily stayed at Ellas Crag, to be cared for by Cath and entertained by her loquacious father Tony, for two days and three nights.

On our first day in the Lake District, a day teasing us with alternate times of dismal rain and promising sun, we decided to make the pilgrimage to Windermere and Beatrix Potter's Hill Top. Having been cautioned by a friend that the lanes around Hill Top were tortuous and crowded with tour busses, our plan was to park in the town of Bowness and ferry across to the Near Sawrey side, then walk. After a couple of aborted attempts we found a parking place within walking distance of a ferry -- not the right one, we later discovered, but the expensive tourist one. Getting to the landing first, I proclaimed our intention to the callow ticket-seller and secured tickets. A lovely old wooden launch hove into view, docked, and we embarked. Halfway across Windermere, a squall settled in. Foolishly, we had not brought our rain gear on this day, and so we were screwing up our courage to get out and wait in the downpour for the "Goat" -- the local bus -- when our kindly captain allowed that we could wait in the cabin of the launch. He asked where we were bound, and when we told him "Hill Top" he let us know that Hill Top was closed on Tuesday and Wednesday "due to the Foot and Mouth." So our £2.50 each bought us a short boat ride to nowhere. As should be expected in a place where colonials come as pilgrims, much of what must be known to make a successful pilgrimage is occult and hard to discern. This is to be understood as part of the penitential aspect of the pilgrimage, the intellectual equivalent of making your way on your knees across the desert. So we were content to ride back across the narrow lake. Our captain, feeling as if we might have been somewhat ripped off, went out of his way to tell tales of the teenaged heiress who built the round mansion on the island, just visible through the screening trees, and of the use this long lake was put to by the Romans while servicing their Wall. By the time we disembarked in Bowness, the rain was spitting dispiritedly, and we made our way back to our car, and along the narrow and twisty "main road" back to Keswick for a session at the Internet Café and a small dinner before returning to Ellas Crag.

On our second day, with the weather slightly promising, we undertook the climb partway up Catbells, the hogsback ridge between Newlands Valley and Derwent Water, one of the lakes giving the district its name. By the time we were only a few hundred feet along the path, the views were stunning, and so was the wind that made our ears ring and ache while our eyes were dazzled by the gregreennessd grandeur of the place.

Looking toward Keswick from low on Catbells

looking toward the top of Catbells

Up the Newlands Valley from Catbells Ellas Crag in red ellipse

		Being young, Chad forged far ahead of us, and reached the top of the first rocky pitch well ahead of us. Derwent Water and Keswick from a bit farther up
		From a distance, Catbells seemed a manageable little hill, but from the windy edge where the trail climbed up, the magnitude of the mountain was impressive.

a sheltered woods above Grange	The gale having blown us right off Catbells, we undertook a ride along the winding back ways around Catbells to Buttermere just over the pass at the top of the Newlands Valley. By our Ordinance Survey map we could see that a loop was possible, through the sweet little village of Grange, over Honister Pass, and thence to Buttermere.
The road, barely wide enough for two cars to crawl past each other at its widest, winds through another village and up through sheltered woods along a stream -- or "beck" as it is called hereabouts -- past a slate mine, and then precipitously down the Buttermere side.	Down the road below Honister
Buttermere Fell swept by sun and wind	The grandeur here is in the windswept fells; the valley above Buttermere is a funnel for the prevailing wind that must blast most of the time. Only rocks and hardy ferns survive. In the wind-shadows, narrow valleys, there are trees and tiny villages that seem to cry out for poetry ...hence Wordsworth and the other Lake poets, and even the little poetry of Peter Rabbit. We were glad to have come and seen the living countryside, not the homes and artifacts of the dead writers.

Except for separating tourists from their money, Buttermere has no reason for being, and so we continued back along the road home to Ellas Crag through the upper Newlands Valley. I must mention the fact that much of this visit was marred by the closure, due to Foot and Mouth, of most, if not all, of the clement lowlands trails.	Upper Newlands Valley
The Lake District's most influential residents?	To us, this seemed a foolish misallocation of resources, no doubt underlain by a political reality we could not understand. For their part, the uncomplaining British were unable to shed any light, although it was clear that they, too, thought the whole management of the crisis too foolish and embarrassing to talk about.

I shall reserve comment until we have had a chance to talk to the folks in Devon, another area hard hit by efforts to manage Foot and Mouth.

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