from Pooley Bridge to Berwick-upon-Tweed

 Pooley Bridge

My last breakfast at the Ullswater House is again delightfully bright, with a hint of sunshine.





Looking at my plate of eggs and salmon, my yogurt with fruit, my toast, neatly positioned on one of those British toast racks which make no sense at all and do not work back home (I bought one thirty years ago and quickly put it away for good) -- I thought about how pleasantly predictable breakfast here has been. David cooks eggs to your liking, Angela brings out the food and chats with the guests.

Not surprisingly, most of the guests are my age. Sometimes, like this past weekend when Pooley Bridge hosted a triatholon, the demographic shifts, but it's back to grandmas and grandpas now.

This morning the other three couples are all Australian. Remarkable how far Australians travel for their vacation! It's a 23 hour trip and still these people come to Europe every year. They talk about otherwise feeling themselves to be too isolated. Somehow this fear isn't shared by my country men and women, many of whom tell me that an ocean is a great impediment to venturing out into the world. Is there such a thing as a cultural predisposition? No, more likely it's that our American vacations are so short and precious and there is family to visit and much to do in your own back yard. Giving up two vacation days just to fly would seem a waste if you only get ten such days per year.

The grandparents of Australia talk about involvement with their grandkids. They all help out to some extent, though their daughters -- mothers of these children -- all had 12 month maternity leaves after birth and guaranteed professional reinstatement. They were shocked, shocked that America does not offer the same. Sigh...

After breakfast I take a last walk down to the lake. It's windy today and there is a haze in the sky that was missing the entire time I was here.





Yes, it is time to move on. You can fault me for planning my stays and travels so far in advance, but you should know that unlike many who research places they will visit, I do none of it in advance. I pick a spot and then decide once there what degree of adventuring I am up for, or how slow my pace should be that day. It really doesn't matter what I do once I arrive. I take in whatever is offered.

I feel like I took in Pooley Bridge in a modest but satisfying way. I'm ready for the next place.

David (my host) drives me to Penrith and I ask him then about his and Angela's vacation. They're taking off for five or six weeks in October, driving their small caravan to Spain (the caravan is large enough to have all the conveniences, but small enough to fit in a parking space, so they don't need a campground). Now that is total flexibility! It takes them many weeks to reach Spain (they pass quite near to my beloved Sorede!) and many weeks to get back. They take bikes to move around, but, too, he tells me that they love to park their caravan and use public transportation whenever possible. You feel the place far better that way -- he tells me. How well I know this!


The Trains


And now come my train connections: from Penrith to Carlisle, from Carlisle to Newcastle, from Newcastle to Berwick-upon-Tweed. It seems far more complicated than it is. The connecting times are easy, though my last train is terribly late (worrisome for future time-sensitive travels) and so I switch to a different one, borrowing someone's mobile to notify my new hosts, also a David but this time with a Pam, of my new arrival. Still, the views are enjoyable, my stack of reading material even more so and I cannot come up with a single complaint about my travels thus far.



Berwick-upon-Tweed

Perhaps I'll use this moment (I write this while on the train) to introduce you to Berwick-upon-Tweed. It's the northernmost English town (just two miles from the border with Scotland) and though you may not think of it as an important player on the global scoreboard of important players (population: 13,265), it was once a royal burgh of Scotland -- fought over violently between the two countries and changing identities from Scottish to English to Scottish, etc. thirteen times before things settled down a bit. It's no wonder that the people here can't quite grasp the concept of being English. I understand about confused national identities,  so I expect to fit right in.

My bed and breakfast (the Granary) is on the exceptionally nice end of the continuum of places I tend to stay in. The reason I can afford it is because way back when I made the reservation the owners must have been of a particularly mellow disposition because they offered me an absolutely superb room at a superb rate (specially priced for someone from cold Wisconsin! -- Pam wrote me), so much so that my Berwick-upon-Tweed stay grew from "just passing through" to four nights. And by the way, like in Keswick, you do not pronounce the "w," so it's Beh-rick, with the upon-Tweed added because it's sounds way more interesting that way but, too, this prevents confusion with that other Berwick in Sussex, England.



(I may never leave this window seat in my room...)


I'm greeted with tea and biscuits...


 


... and we talk about the various ways one can spend 3.5 days in this pretty town with the three bridges over a river where hundreds of swans hang out.

For additional information as to times and buses and such, I go to the Tourist Office in the center of town...






...and after, I stop at Boots Pharmacy to have a chat with the pharmacist on call. It's fascinating how this is done. You ring a bell and you're buzzed into a tiny room with an open window through which the pharmacist speaks to you. Much like a confessional. I tell her that my knee is bugging me and this is no good for a person who intends to hike to high heaven in the next ten days. She tells me about the various inflammatory triggers and suggests a topical cream which is perfect, as I think the issue isn't severe enough to warrant more draconian interventions. And I trust her completely. Why? Because I notice her name tag. It says : "Agnieszka."

Yes, she's Polish. Completed her pharmacy studies in Poland. In England for five years now. Terrified at first of practicing her skills abroad, but by now ,she's done the leap and she's coasting. And still, she asks about my own (forty years ago!) transition to life in the States. I leave her with only the best message: at some point, your new place does wedge itself into your heart and it becomes home.


I don't do much else today. There is a terrific walk along the ramparts of the city (all those wars called for strong fortifications), but I walk just a small bit of it. Enough to see some of the uniquely Berwick-upon-Tweed offerings:

Those mute swans (they come here by the hundreds; in the photo, their necks are submerged):






The three bridges. (The first, the Old Bridge from 1611; the second, the newest one from 1928; the third, the Royal Border Bridge opened by Queen Victoria in 1850, creating a rail link between London and Edinburgh.)






And a treat: an exhibition of Lowry's work depicting Berwick-upon-Tweed. Perhaps not a household name, still, Lowry was one interesting dude and his works these days can bring millions at auction. (He died in 1976 and I can't say the same appraisal would have been given to his work then). Just so you understand the genius of this man's art form, in 2013 (finally!), the Tate in London devoted a retrospective to Lowry. You know how these famous galleries take a while to let the worth of others sink in.






In the evening, I go to Audela's next door to my Bed and Breakfast. This small, informal place creates a masterful endive salad with stilton and walnuts and the salmon (did I mention that the Tweed is a salmon river?) is wonderful. I'll return to daily pub food next week, but for now, Berwick-upon-Tweed, small town that it is,  offers a delightful reprieve.





I'll sign off with this thought: it's odd how just a few train ridess over a distance of just a few miles gives you an entirely different perspective on the every day. Odd, but wonderful.

notes from Pooley Bridge

If you take the high road, make sure you know where it joins the low road or you'll be in Scotland instead of at the Howtown dock, like you'd planned. Just sayin'.

One big problem with being in Europe is that the time difference does not permit  for easy conversation with your sweeties back home. I stayed up late last night connecting with various family members with issues they are facing even as I am galavanting over fell and dale, having a grand old time of it. Sweet, sweet Ed helped me and as always was rock solid in all sorts of ways I never adequately acknowledge here.

So it was a bit of a long evening, but eventually we all put worries aside and called it a day. At least I did. It wasn't quite the end of the day for those at the other side.

One commenter asked if I'm north enough to experience the true beauty of summer solstice and a white night. I have to say I am not. Where I am is like being in eastern Wisconsin (early sunrise) and western Michigan (late sunset) all at once. But it does get dark in between.

When I told my hosts that Pooley Bridge is the plum place to visit in the high season (fewer people by far), they reminded me that it isn't fully high season as school term hasn't ended just yet. When I commented that there aren't the bed and breakfasts here to house more than a handful, they said that the British like to travel by caravan and there are caravan parks that will fill up mightily, come mid July.

How well I know the British caravan (or trailer, as we call it)! It can be found in every nook and alley of southern France! My hosts admitted to themselves being the caravan types and only recently did they discover the beauties of a bed and breakfast -- pretty much when they opened their own (two years ago). Their grown daughters told them they surely were having a midlife crisis.

The inn they run is, not surprisingly, immensely popular as it is low priced, immaculate and very fresh and well tended. But, they say that all their first years' profits went into renovation. Tomorrow morning I get to catch a free ride with them to Penrith because they are passing through there on the way to Keswick where they have to get permission to proceed with a window replacement without the need of a historical preservation certificate. They say that the pub owners who operate out of historical houses don't have it so easy. Each renovation is a major bureaucratic struggle. I thought it was slightly amusing that my innkeepers have to get permission to change windows without permission.

This morning, after a fitting breakfast which they modify for me, as I said no thanks to sausage or blood pudding (I get salmon instead; yum!), I speculated about my hike for the day. Since it's my last day here I want to keep it close to home. My hosts suggested the high road which follows the ridge line from Pooley Brisdge to Howtown (pronounced hoh-tn). From there I can walk the low road home or, if I'm less energetic, hop on the steamer back to Pooley Bridge.

I spent far too much time worrying about finding the trail leaving Pooley Bridge and too little time studying a map for the connection to the low road. As a result, by the time I reached the summit above Howtown, I had no choice but to scurry down like a limp sheep (I saw one of those so I can vouch for the accuracy of the comparison). The grade was far too steep for my ancient knees. I did make it down without wincing out loud, but if anyone has knee preserving exercises that they can recommend, I'm listening!

After three hours of climbing and then rapidly descending, the temptation to settle into a reclining position on the steamer was tremendous and so I took the boat home.

I felt that I had earned my cream tea.

And so in the afternoon, I settled in at Granny Dowbekin's Tearoom (there is a tea room at Pooley Bridge!) and indulged. Heaven.

And then, I made myself comfortable in the Guest House garden and Angela (my host) brought me fizzy water over lemon and ice and I was thinking that I could not be more comfortable. Dappled sunshine, flowers as only the British can do in a small garden -- a superb moment of peace and calm.

Tonight, I return to the Sun Pub. It won my heart that first night and I want to order fish and chips and theirs looked best.

It's too early for the football game (you know: the US v. Belgium one). But you get the sense that ever since the elimination of the English team from this year's World Cup, people here have lost interest. England was crossed off so unexpectedly, so early in the tournament, that many believe England should never again play as England. That it should bring in the best from countries that never compete in the World Cup: Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland and play as one United Kingdom. Though why Scotland should want this, given that they're scheduled to vote this September on their independence -- is beyond me.

The fish and chips plate is fine. I had the best fried fish ever this past June at my daughter's wedding so it is an unfair comparison, but I try to eat it with a different mind set here. Indeed, people come in and note that the smell of my fish and chips is earth shatteringly fantastic, or some such superlative. (By the way, did you know that Wisconsin is the only place that calls this a fish fry? Everywhere else it's 'fish and chips.')

So that's the text. Here are the photos:



breakfast in a sunny room




the ridge line of today's hike





buttercups: flowers of my childhood, growing along streams and riverbanks





approaching one of the summits





sheep, posing





most, but not all of Ullswater Lake





a selfie at the highest summit (I met no hikers to help me out here)





more distant views





lonely lamb





very black sheep





down in the valley





the steamer for the return ride





as viewed from the steamer





cream tea





sunlight in the Sun Pub





fish and chips and a pea mash


...and a good night to you all!

and beyond

It is a curious thing that if I find myself in a place that's stunningly beautiful, instead of digging in, I want to go further. Look beyond my immediate environment. Because if it is so pretty here, shouldn't I take note of the region as a whole? Mightn't it be even prettier around the corner?

If you knew the Lake District, you'd probably say you can't get around much in a short period of time without a car. Well try me!

I love using public transportation, especially when I travel. Get in the car and get out again at your destination? How boring! What exchanges have you witnessed? What commentary do you have on the ways of the place you're passing through? However little I see in short visits, it is made richer (for me) if I travel alongside those who live there.

And so I ask my lovely hosts -- Angela and David -- if it's possible to see the other lake in a day trip. You know, the bigger lake. The one thought to be the grand dame of them all. I must admit, Angela a little bit frowned at that.
It may be possible, but I don't know if you can also fit in a hike while there.

I persevered. Let's look at the bus schedules.

Angela  does that and comes back with the news that I'd have to take three separate buses to get to Lake Windermere.
And would it be easy to walk around, say, the town of  Windermere?
Angela's frown grows even deeper. It's very touristy there, she tells me.
Point well taken. I study a book from her shelf -- an excellent little volume titled "Exploring the Lakes and the Low Fells." Maybe I don't have to go into Windermere, the town. There's a hike from Ambleside, just short of Windermere. I could try that.

We figure out the bus combinations: the 10:36 to Penrith, then the 11:15 to Keswick (don't pronounce the "w" in these English names!), then the 12:25 to Ambleside (which is the town just before Windermere).

The weather site tells me there may be rain. Fine. I take appropriate precautions. I smile at the sign in an English sporting good store in Keswick:





It is a beautiful set of bus routes. The first bus, from Pooley Bridge to Penrith, is nearly empty. I share the ride with local seniors going to the "big town" to shop, or in two cases, to visit the infirmary.

(Here's a Penrith update on the old red English phone booth!)







The second ride is lovely still, but we're picking up a few trekkers now.





The third ride is completely exasperating because only now do I learn that instead of purchasing individual tickets, I could have bought a day "explorer" and saved myself 15 pounds. Bummer summer. I learn.

That third ride -- from Keswick to Ambleside -- is also dominated by tourists. In fact, the bus fills with them.

I am in the Windermere region. I am in a different world! (Though the views out the window are very nice indeed.)





If I thought Pooley Bridge was a tad busy on Saturday and if I thought the half dozen tourists strolling about after the weekend felt "crowded," well now, I understood today that Pooley Bridge and Lake Ullswater are like an undiscovered sanctuary of peace and calm compared to the towns I pass through on my way to Lake Windermere. (Notably, Pooley Bridge does not have an ATM. That says it all, I think.)

Places I had been excited to see -- Grasmere, where Wordsworth lived for 14 years, believing it to be the "loveliest spot in the world," is thick with people and tour buses. Rydal, a hamlet favored by Wordsworth and his descendants, is an avenue of cafes and souvenir shops. Everything seems named for some aspect of the poet's life. It's like the significant elements of his existence have been immortalized in B&B names and eating venues.

My own Guest House host was right. It's different here.

I get off at Ambleside with some trepidation. Did I waste my precious day on coming here?

Let me interrupt this narrative with a little editorial insert. Here it is: if there is one Grimms fairy tale that drives me nuts as a parent of daughters and as a human being inhabiting this earth, it's Snow White. That whole shindig about  "who is the fairest of them all?" should be stricken from a young child's thought process. I suppose in some way we all strive to find the beautiful, to be ourselves beautiful, to fill our world with elements of beauty, but must there be a hierarchy? Is there a best cheese (as the French would have it)? A finest wine? A loveliest flower? A better view? Is there? A dowdy dandelion looked so gorgeous around my chicken's legs one fine May morning. It moved me to take a photo and it remains one of my favorite cheeper photos. Possibly not yours, but you weren't there inhaling the beautiful spring air, so full of hope and warm sunshine and cheeper enthusiasm for every worm that crawled to the surface!

Okay, back to the narrative. Straightaway, I take out my hiking book and direct myself onto the trail and away from the "village" of Ambleside.

Well now.

Follow along: please, just follow along. (It's a 3.5 hour hike, which I did in 3.25 hours only because I ran the last mile in order to catch the bus out of here; in any case, it will not take you 3.25 hours to follow along. Just look at the photos. They don't do justice, but they give a hint. It's not necessarily that it is a best view out there, but it is a damn good set of views!)
















The book labels it as a difficult hike. True, it is a hellacious ascent, but I differentiate between strenuous (which you can always do slowly if you tire easily) and dangerous (which means steep drop offs, sheer cliffs, treacherous climbs etc). This was not dangerous.

I loved this hike. I loved every bit of it. Every view -- down to the town...


 


...up to the fells, and then, to Lake Windermere.






(oh wait, I should post the photo taken by a passerby, to commemorate this hike for me)






I loved the steep ascent and then the meandering path down, through "the Hundreds"...





...down to the walled on both sides Nanny Lane. Sweet name, no?

I loved the fact that the weather was perfect: warmer than yesterday, but still in the sixties, with bouts of sunshine, but never too much.






There isn't a single thing about the hike that I did not love. The sheep. Yes, I loved them too.





True, I felt I had to run the last thirty minutes. I passed every hiker out there. Run. Make the bus. Run. In the end, I worried for naught. I got to Ambleside in enough time to even visit a lovely cafe-restaurant (actually I dont quite know what it is, but it's delightful and when I'm in these parts again, I'll be sure to linger). Lucy's. I bought a scone for the ride back.
Would you like some clotted cream to go and some jam too? -- the young woman behind the counter asks.

Oh how delicious was her desire to give me the full deal! I would have loved to sit down and have what I have not had for decades! A tea with a scone with clotted cream and jam! (Ask my daughters: I have, over the years, recreated that ritual at home for them. The cream may not have been clotted, but the point was the same: in the afternoon, a tea with fresh scones -- I have the best recipe for them! -- and cream and jam, give you a minute to exhale. No troubles ever rise to the surface when you are pouring tea and smattering a scone with cream and just a touch of jam. I learned that early. I stuck by it for years.)

Still, there was no time for a "cream tea" today. I allowed her to pack some jam in with my freshly baked scone and I caught the series of buses back to my beloved, quiet Pooley Bridge.

I'm eating at the third pub tonight, where the food is equally pub-ish -- my Cumbrian roast chicken is fine, as are the boiled veggies. At home, across the quiet street, I'll enjoy the rest of my scone from Lucy's.

the lake

When you travel alone, you inadvertently (or mostly inadvertently) pick up fragments of other people's lives. Their conversations, typically muted by the noise of your own voice, ring loud and clear when you yourself are silent.

And so at breakfast...





...I overheard the foursome at the table next to mine discuss their return home today. And at the ferry landing, I listened to the grandma make plans to care for her granddaughters in the comming week as the mom has a particularly busy work schedule. Also at the landing, I listened to a mom reprimand her young son for being restless, and the girls complain about being hungry.

Finally, at dinner, I couldn't help but overhear at the local pub, four seniors (well, they were slightly more senior than I am) complain about not getting responses to various texts they had sent to their various children. They figured, probably correctly, that the kids got them, but just did not respond.

One comment I have on that is how much times have changed since I was last in England! It was a little over five years ago. Then, computers, smart phones, WiFi -- they were all rarefied entities. Few people depended on them when they traveled. I did need WiFi, because of Ocean and it was always a struggle finding a spot where I could post. Now, local seniors at a Pooley Bridge pub whip out their smartphones and compare notes on the lives of their grown children.

[It's somewhat ironic that my biggest source of internet stress right now is at the farmette. I did not mention it in the rush of leaving, but internet at the farmhouse had been down for at least 24 hours before my departure. The old habits were with me again: I had to drive down to a bar with WiFi in order to post. Even as we speak, Ed is still trying to understand why, intermittently this week, the internet keeps failing. Me, I've had splendid connections in the two places Ive stayed at so far. We live in funny times.]


After breakfast, I decide to take the little ferry to the other (southernmost) tip of the lake, some 15 kilometers away from Pooley Bridge. From there, I will hike most of the way back again. In a sense, Sunday is a poor choice for this expedition. If you want a quiet, contemplative setting, doing the ferry and the most popular trail on a Sunday in summer will not give you the retreat from humanity that other days might. But I am less interested in a retreat than I am in good weather and this day looks on the weather maps to be the best guess for a rain free day. An hour long boat trip across the lake and then a multi-hour trek back is best accomplished on a rain-free day.

Well, the rains held off, but it is quite possible that today will have been the coolest of all the days I am in Great Britain. We barely reached 60 and out on the lake, the gusty wind made you wonder if autumn was in the air. I spent only some of the ride outside, admiring the scenery.
























The rest? I retreated to the cabin below and dozed off a bit. I'm still way behind in sleep and I find it easy and tempting to take naps in the quiet moments of the day.


At the end of the ride, in Glenridding, I got off with the handful of others and quite suddenly we all dispersed and I had my moment of quiet.





Glenridding is not any larger than Pooley Bridge and I canvassed it quickly and without pause. My goal was to first hike to the nearby village of Patterdale. My last night's dinner companions mentioned that Patterdale would be hosting a Country Fair this Sunday. When I asked what that entails, they shrugged and said -- probably animals. Should be interesting. We might pop over on our way home.

Ah, like our county fairs -- I thought. Cows with blue ribbons. Hogs and maybe a few rides for the kiddies. Okay. I'll check it out.

It was nothing like that. Oh, sure, there were vintage tractors on display. Too, there were food stands, though not too many. And you could buys some local products. Honey, for example. And I saw one ride. Well, not really a ride -- an inflatable slide where a kid could bounce around some. No one was bouncing when I walked by.

The emphasis here was on dogs. Local folks brought their dogs. Working dogs: hunters and herders. But pet dogs as well, to be included in the terrier racing, for example (they chased a rag bone suspended on a pulley).






This is dog country.






Unquestionably. Dogs are welcome in pubs, they travel on the ferries with their families, they hike the trails along with their owners.

And there is great pride in the well mannered dog. The one who knows how to do the basics. Who doesn't pull at the lead or bark at strangers.

I found the pride and preoccupation with the canine world to be both sweet and touching. Here's a lad with his border collie. The bond between them was obvious. And when I went on to pet another pooch, the boy made sure I did not neglect his beloved.





I could have stayed for the entire afternoon watching various dog judging events and demonstrations (or I could have signed up for the Fell Racing event which included a separate judging of the uphill race for senior participants), but the clouds had rolled in and the wind had picked up and I needed to get going on my hike. I noted at the bottom of the Country Fair program that the date has been set for next year's event: June 28th, in case you're in the area.


Time to hike. It's only 7 miles to Howtown -- the point halfway down the lake where I can pick up the return ferry back to Pooley Bridge. There's a bit of an up and down slant to it. Climb up, go down. Climb up, go down. But that's good. I had my jacket off before too long. And the views were as green and lush as you'd expect. This is Wordsworth country: he attended school in Penrith and the beloved poem, Daffodils, refers to a field found just at the western edge of Lake Ullswater. He had spent the night in Pooley Bridge and on the next day, he and his sister Dorothy were enchanted by the cascading yellow flowers along the shore.

It's not the season for daffodils. But there is quite a lot to instill feelings of enchantment:























Oddly, though I crossed paths with a number of other hikers, every single one of them was heading south even as I was heading north. I don't know why. Perhaps it is customary, perhaps the inclines are more gentle -- in any case, I found myself uttering far more "hellos" than I usually do during longer hikes.

At Howtown, I decided to hop on the returning ferry. It would take me another three hours to complete the circuit along the lake all the way down to Pooley Bridge and I had already been up and about for nearly twice that on this blustery day. So, ferry home.







In Pooley Bridge, I buy a shortbread covered with caramel and chocolate (the English like their cakes on the sweet side; this one is common and often referred to as the millionaire's bar) and took it to my little room were I boiled a pot of water for tea.

Still hungry, I set out to a second pub (the Crown) for an early dinner. There, I had the recommended and good enough chicken sizzled with peppers and onions. Pub food. I surely am not complaining -- the portion was huge and I ate all of it.

It's evening now and the village of Pooley Bridge has calmed down considerably after its weekend rush of visitors. The clouds have moved to the north and there are large swatches of blue sky again. I don't know if the weather will hold. I don't know where I'll walk tomorrow. I'm munching a stack of biscuits purchased at the convenience store and thinking about the fields of ferns and foxglove (digitalis purpurea) that I encountered on my walks here.


 


The foxglove plant produces copious seeds and though the plant's life is short lived (it's really a biannual rather than a perennial), it is sure to be replaced by the next generation and the one after. And that's a comforting thought to keep in your mind now,  on this quiet evening in Pooley Bridge.