We start today on three visits to the Lake Districts and reflecting on Wordsworth whilst we enjoy it. The Lakes are so beautiful and we all enjoyed previous trips with you both there, that we are quite keen to discover more.
Thank you Sheila and Philip and we are so delighted that you like to explore, discover and in safer times travel. We have benefited enormously. We are most grateful!
"The poet William Wordsworth described the Lake District as "the most picturesque part of the North." He was born at Cockermouth on the edge of the Lake District, went to the grammar school in Hawkshead, and after graduating from Cambridge University, spending some time travelling, and living in London and Dorset, eventually settled back in the Lake District. Following his marriage to Mary, the Wordsworth family lived at Grasmere and eventually Rydal Mount. We remember Wordsworth for his poetry, but he earned his living as Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland.
Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy and wife Mary, walked for miles on the lakesides and fells. In 1810 he first published his Guide to the Lakes, which he enlarged into five editions.
In our walk today we take the 'foot road' as William Wordsworth called it along the southern shore of Rydal Water, one of the poet's favourite places. We hear words from his Guide to the Lakes before returning to Rydal to visit Rydal Mount, for 37 years the home of Wordsworth up until his death in 1850."
This felt like quite a different walk today and really poignant too. I loved the mosses and lichens in particular: they a favourite of mine - such colours and shapes!Dry stone walls are amazing and each area of the country having a slightly different style,. When I was in Monmouthshire, they have absolutely vast areas of dry stone walls, beautiful, homes for Adders in warm weather they slither out to bask and sunbathe. In the farm just down the road they ran courses on dry stone walling which I always fancied doing but it was hugely pricey!
Thank you Sheila and Philip and look forward to next week's walk.
FEEL GOOD FRIDAY
I've been sent a link this week, to something rather lovely that I thought would be nice to share with you over the coming weeks. While we've all felt the struggles of the pandemic, lockdown and 2020 in general, it's not all been bad!
So to mark the good things that have happened we'll be celebrating with 'Feel Good Friday' over the next few weeks. So without further ado, here are the first two brilliant things that 2020 bore witness to!
In Kenya, more than 140 elephants have been born in Amboseli National Park this year, including two sets of twins. This brings Kenya's overall wild elephant population to more than double that of 1989 when there were just 16,000 elephants in the country. By 2018 that number had increased to 34,000.
Scotland has become the first country in the world to make period products free for all.
MSPs unanimously approved the Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Bill in November 2020. A survey of more than 2,000 people by Young Scot found that about one in four respondents at school, college or university in Scotland had struggled to access period products.
“It is only in our darkest hours that we may discover the true strength of the brilliant light within ourselves that can never, ever, be dimmed.”
- Doe Zantamata