Tuesday, September 29th

Joe had expressed a desire to do some shopping so we stopped in Bowness. I bought a new memory card for my camera - the 128MB one having stopped working, leaving me with only 8MB of memory - so I now have 2GB. I also saw nice holiday presents for Jessie and the boys (under £10 for all three, which is ample for holiday souvenirs). Joe holds to a different view and wants to spend, spend, spend. Fortunately there seem to be no antique shops in Bowness and the art galleries are for the most part outside his range. I bought father a new log basket to go with the new wood burner.

On through Windermere and Ambleside (no antique shops in view) towards Grasmere and Dove Cottage. We had an irritating lunch at the tea room there. I ordered chicken pate, toast and salad for Joe and two coffees. Then I asked whether they had anything small and savoury. She asked what I had in mind, to which I replied a half size chicken pate and toast would be nice or something cheesy. No, all she could offer was Borrowdale tea loaf and cheese. I accepted. While I went to the loo, the coffees and tea loaf arrived. We drank the coffee and waited, and waited, and waited for Joe's platter. After about a dozen people who had come in after us had been served with their cooked meals and/or salads I went up to the counter to ask about Joe's. "Oh, I crossed it out. I didn't think you wanted it." There's six foot of hungry young man sitting at the table! Does he look like he lives on air? Are two of us going to share one slice of cake? I got a bit cross. It was brought fairly fast. I ordered another cup of coffee to keep him company.
Dove Cottage (2)
We went into the Wordsworth museum and bought timed tickets for Dove Cottage, and looked round the Tennyson exhibition. (Yes, you did read that right - this year's bi-centenary - next Poet Laureate after Wordsworth.) We hadn't long to wait, and soon we were in the cottage where we were given a guided tour. The young woman knew her stuff, but was a bit inclined to recite her script and hurry us on rather than engage with her audience, unlike my previous visit more than twenty years ago when the male guide was a cheerful chatterbox happy to swap literary anecdotes and quotations in every room. At the end - there now being no press of numbers following a busy morning with a coachload of Japanese tourists among others - we were able to look round a bit more leisurely and talk a bit with the guide.

After that we went into the garden where I sat in the shelter right at the top (where Wordsworth is reputed to have gone to write out of the way of family and guests) and admired the beauty of the prospect. It is a nice little garden - apparently wild in the art which conceals art sort of way.
Dove Cottage

Back in the museum to look at the permanent Wordworth exhibition where Joe became rather fratchy with me for 'reading everything' - that's what it's there for, and actually I skipped quite a lot of the bits I already knew, then on to the Edward Lear watercolours (many of which I had already seen a few years ago at a stately home, I think, but I can't remember where) and finally to the shop where I got into conversation about the rag rugs they had on sale there with a lady who remembered making them during the war, and Joe bought a nice print of an early nineteenth century watercolour of Rydal Water.

We went into Grasmere thinking to visit the famous gingerbread shop: there was a long queue outside so we didn't bother, but instead had a look at an art gallery where I bought a block of black watercolour paint to replenish my box.

My choice would have been to skip Grasmere village and go on to renew my acquaintance with Rydal Mount, but Joe was all Wordsworthed out, and it would have been quite an expensive visit for the short length of afternoon left. So, instead we drove back and reached the Brown Horse at Winster just before six o'clock where we had a very nice evening meal. I had home-cured ham and all the trims while Joe went for the fish pie - both were excellent, though mine could have been a bit hotter. There is a farm shop attached and it is all part of a large farming and shooting estate on which virtually everything served in the pub and sold in the shop is grown. Afterwards Joe had sticky toffee pudding and I had a whiskey creme brulee (the real thing and not one of those baked custards masquerading as creme brulee which are far too often served). It was all expensive enough to be an occasional treat rather than a habit, but not excessive for the quality.