The Honeymoon

On Sunday morning we woke to torrential rain - the sky was seething with water. It was such a contrast to the splendid sunshine we had only 24 hours previously. After packing up our stuff and collecting a refund of half for the bridal suite in the hotel we were staying (since the Jacuzzi did not work), we pondered how wet we would get walking to Rochester train station. Then, miraculously, a taxi dropped off a passenger right outside the hotel entrance. We weren’t going to pass up this opportunity, even more so as we got soaked in the minute or so it took just putting our bags into the car. We would have been totally sodden had we walked.
We caught the train to Victoria - where still it was raining - and walked to the coach depot for a National Express to the North. Our destination was the Lake District, in particular Keswick. While we waited for the coach to ready itself, an Iranian man started talking with me. He had a grand theory that King Arthur and his knights were actually from Persia! So intent on espousing his idea that he almost missed his bus. A little while later we were in the bay itself and started talking with this Russian woman who was going to work in a hotel to gain tourism experience in one of the villages that dot Cumbria, located between Kendal and Keswick. She had certainly travelled around having a current Italian boyfriend from her time working in Italy.
The further north we journeyed the more the ferocity of the weather slackened. Stopping off in Birmingham for a break we stretched our legs looking for a cash point and encountered the new architecture of the Bull Ring Road, like Moby Dick had been caught and placed on display with thousands of baubles stuck to the skin. With the contrast of the old church and this space age marvel, the architects had created a beautiful space.
Back on the bus, the sun edged ever increasingly into view and was quite suffusing the rolling landscapes of the Lake District. We had been held up between London and Birmingham and to make up time the driver did not allow any extended break at Preston bus station. I read about this building and it has a certain oddball charm. It would be a shame if plans were approved to knock it down. The swell of hills and green the deeper we went into Cumbria, the higher my spirits rose. We arrived in Keswick a mere half an hour late (when on leaving the Midlands we were two hours behind schedule).
We decamped to the Queen’s Hotel which we had booked because it was cheap and close to the town centre. Altaa and I feared that such was its location there would be plenty of traffic below our room, but to our joyful surprise, this section of the town had been pedestrianised and so was quite idyllic.
The price of the Queen’s Hotel was quite a bargain as we would experience throughout the week. Our room was on the top floor, however and the lift was out of action, so we had to lump our luggage up the stairs. The view from our room was worth it though of gracious, green hills ululating into the distance.
The next day we took it easy, acquainting ourselves with Keswick and the surrounding countryside. Altaa was suffused with happiness on seeing sheep roam freely the fields with humans and Derwent Water was startingly shimmering in the delight it inspired. We took a fistful of local promotional leaflets about what to see nearby from the theatre house. That night, Altaa and I dined in a Thai restaurant (a somewhat incongruous establishment it must be said for Keswick), but we patronised more traditional eateries for the rest of the holiday.
For Tuesday, we decided to go to one of the zoos since Altaa had never been to one before. We caught a bus to the nearest town on the map that the literature bumf displayed - Cockermouth. It was also the birthplace of William Wordsworth and we went to the house that he spent his early years in, seeing a manservant lay the table in the main downstairs room and a cook serve up eighteenth century delicacies, each explaining the times their characters would have lived in and the history of the house. Sadly, everything the cook made would have to be disposed of, because as she was using the implements of the day to prepare the pies and such like, the health and safety of the food was not up to scratch for modern regulations.
We had actually overshot the mark in coming to Cockermouth and needed to catch a second bus going back in the direction we came to drop us off outside the zoo. Inside this outdoor extravaganza were many kinds of birds (including one peacock who insouciantly had the freedom of the grounds), lemurs from Madagascar, baboons, bison, tapirs and zebras to mention a few, while there was also a lizard house with snakes and iguanas. Altaa loved it.
On the Wednesday we relaxed staying in more than half the day watching TV in bed, going out in the afternoon to explore the more suburban parts of Keswick, taking in the Pencil Museum en route and walking along tracks where once steam trains ruled supreme.
I was determined to visit Lake Windermere again as I had done when a child and so Thursday was taken up with a trip to the town of Windermere. We eschewed the Beatrix Potter experience since our time was limited as we traversed the streets down to lakeside. There were some very friendly swans patrolling the docks who were of course kept far from hunger with all the tourists proffering bread morsels. We hitched a ride on one of the ships that regularly push south and once down at the bottom of the lake (that is, the furthest south) we rode on the grand old way of train transport, which was an optional surcharge on the boat ticket, to travel the way the Victorians regarded as the height of civilisation, this choo-choo bearing a distinct resemblance to Thomas the Tank Engine.
As Friday dawned it was time to return home. A few showers aside we had experienced sublime weather as the South suffered storms, enabling to truly see this corner of the Lake District in all it s glory. The best recommendation I can give it is that I want to return so much.