And No One Died (Part II)

Thursday, Sept. 18

On Thursday, I had planned to tour the local hostel and take a few pictures.  I’d never seen a hostel before, but the one in Keswick had always intrigued me.  It is a lovely place that can hold up to 85 people.  There’s a large kitchen/restaurant and enough bathrooms to handle a full house!  It’s located just next to the River Greta and I’d recommend it to anyone on a tight budget!

Afterwards, we went into town and browsed the market for about an hour.  Then, picked up some sandwiches at Greggs bakery and wandered over to St. John’s.  The churchyard was a beautiful place to share lunch and admire the gorgeous day!   

Afterward, we went to the B&B to wait for Chris.  At 12:30 he came by to pick us up.  He’d driven all the way from Workington to pick us up and drove us all the way back to Workington after having worked all night!  We could’ve driven over if I’d known, but, he took us everywhere.  We can’t even remember all the places we went!  I know we were at the power plant near his home.  We went through St. Bees and saw the church where George Washington’s grandmother is supposed to have been buried (though there is no gravestone).  We stopped by a small church with ancient celtic monument.  

We saw the start of the Coast to Coast walk and the Coast to Coast bike trails.  We were taken to Wastwater “voted the best view in England five years ago”.  We had pear cidre at a pub high in the fells and saw amazing sights!  On the way back, we picked up Fudge Labrador and headed to the pub to meet up with our friends in Keswick.

The Dog and Gun was packed solid, so we decided to head over to the OddFellows pub where there’s a beer garden.  The bartender got mad at Chris for having Fudge inside while ordering his beer, so we moved outside and waited for folks to show up.  It was a great party.  Ultimately, we had Chris and Fudge, Ray and Lyn, a couple from Finland (I think), Stephen and Jennifer McGuigan, Sarn and Neil Penney, and the three of us.  Dawn Sharples and Don Dawber got held up in traffic, so we didn’t see them that night.  It was a wonderful meeting of people who love the lakes and there was a really great vibe to the evening.  I remember just feeling so much gratitude for everyone there.

It wasn’t til we got back to our B&B that I realized I’d lost the car keys somehow.  We tore up the room looking for them, and they weren’t to be found.  I was so upset, but called Enterprise – and at that moment began the lost keys drama.  They were going to have someone come and re-key our car the next day (the day I was scheduled to hike Haystacks with the gang).

I was so worried and so upset, but Sarn Penney quickly took charge of the situation and handled Enterprise so I could do my hike and so that April and Sharmon could enjoy their day in the lakes.  She was really a lifesaver that day!

In the meantime, I rode up with Neil to the appointed spot for our hike (Gosforth Farm).  We followed Chris up to the car park to leave our car and then drove to the Honister mine to leave his car while we began our hike.  On the way to Gosforth farm, I got to see a REAL sheep herding demonstration.  Six collies were bringing hundreds of sheep down from the high meadows, and traffic was stopped while they crossed the road.  Really an amazing sight!

The hikers included Neil, myself, Seany Tanner and his friend Mike, Don Dawber, Dawn Sharples, and Chris (along with Fudge).

If I would’ve known about the difficulty of this hike beforehand, I would’ve probably called it off.  Thank goodness I didn’t, because I have some great memories.  It was an amazing day – rather hot to start off with.  Even for a Texan!  But, we made it to the top and had lunch (I was so pleased with myself that my body seemed to be just fine with all the exertion).  I had no idea what I was about to face!

Large, loose stones for a large part of the walk meant that I had to watch every single step coming down the mountain.  It was two hours of deep knee bends and steadying my feet on loose rock.  By the time I got to walkable territory, my feet were aching beyond belief! 

We were near Gosforth Farm at that time, so piled into our vehicles and drove back up to Honister to drop folks off by their cars.

I must say that without the encouragement of the entire team, I might not have made it down again.  Seany Tanner and Dawn really stood at the end of the trip going “you can do it – not much longer now!”  Thanks guys!  Because of you, we didn’t have to call Mountain Rescue. *wink*

Neil and I got back to Keswick and opted to clean up a bit and meet at the Pack Horse pub for dinner.  It was just long enough to shower and get over there where April, Sharmon and I met up with Neil and Sarn as well as Don, Dawn, and Dawn’s dog – Kimmi (who had also been on the hike with us).

Halfway through dinner, Kimmi – who is extremely afraid of flies – saw a couple of flies and totally freaked out.  Don and I took a couple of turns walking her outside to get away from the evil creatures.

Sarn explained to us the strangeness of Enterprise car rental and her dealings with them that day.  The spare key wasn’t in Durham – it was in London at headquarters.  So, they were couriering the key from London to Durham and then from Durham to the Penrith Enterprise near us.  Because they were down to one key now, they couldn’t let us have the same car, but would have to swap us out for another.  They would be in Keswick early Saturday in time for us to stay on our schedule for the trip.  However, we would be charged about $500 for a replacement key and for whatever the courier fee was.

I was astonished… $500 for a key?  I used to get keys for $7 at Wal-mart!  But now cars are more complicated and keys are small computers.  Evidently! 

The new car was a little smaller, but thanks to “Packing Annie” (as we called April), we were able to fit everything in.  Let me just say that April was invaluable on the trip.  It was extremely difficult driving on foreign roads, with everything backward and two GPS’s that were so bad we began calling them Beavis and Butthead!  Without April’s ability to work things out, we would’ve been stranded numerous times. 

After a sad goodbye to Neil and Sarn, we were finally on the road and heading southward toward Wales.  Goodbye lovely Lakeland friends! Goodbye mountains, streams, St. Johns, markets, lakes, dogs, and all the things I cherish about Cumbria.

Speaking of Beavis and Butthead… they decided to direct us to the M6 through ALL of the highly tourist-dense towns in the Lake District!  I knew to go through Penrith, but when you turn on a GPS, all of a sudden, your brain goes “duh”… and there you are in the middle of a trillion billion tourists all hoping to catch a glimpse of Wordsworth daffodils or, perhaps, visit the Disneyesque Beatrix Potter adventure.  After an hour of negotiating the small, packed roads – we finally hit the M6 and were on our way to Stoke-on-Trent.

The main reason to stop in Stoke is for the shopping.  Outlets for the major potteries are located here, and I was determined that Laura Hodges would get a Doulton “Pretty Lady”.  As for myself, I picked up a figurine of Prince William with Kate and the baby as well as a tea cake tray and a trinket box for my friend Sharon Williams.  I also wanted to go to an out of the way pottery to pick up a Maggie Thatcher figurine, but couldn’t find it quickly and had another stop before we wended our way toward the Wye Valley.

We had picked a town I had never heard of before (Bromsgrove) to meet my friend, Judith Yates, from Coventry.  I had met Judith online where I had admired her paintings and commissioned one of my mom.  We had remained “virtual” friends up until today when I was going to meet her for the first time!

We called Judith to let her know we were on our way… and zoomed happily along the M6 until…

TRAFFIC.  Major traffic in Birmingham.  We were moving at a snail’s pace and I wrung my hands wondering if we were ever going to *really* make it to Bromsgrove!  But… sooner or later, it finally did let up and we were on our way again.

Well, Bromsgrove was easy to find, but the meeting place – not so much.  I had hoped Bromsgrove was a much smaller town than it turned out to be!  I wish we’d had a recording of all the “missed exit” screeches and my seemingly inexhaustible vocabulary of swear words.  However, we did locate a promising looking car park and parked our butts… then headed toward the town center.

Poor Judith had waited all that time for us to show up, and our chat was only to last about an hour or so.  Unfortunately, the time was slipping away from us and I wanted to make our B&B by sundown.  So, with more sadness, I had to say goodbye, once again, to a good friend.

I will say this bit about driving in England.  It is at once a much better and a much worse situation than driving in the U.S.  Strangely, it’s not the driving on the wrong side of the road that bothers me so much.  It’s the roundabouts and the fact that if you make one wrong exit you could potentially be doomed to the wrong direction for miles.  I will also say that roads like “the Struggle” and that 45 degree uphill road near Tintagel should be banned!  But we will come to that harrowing story soon.

This evening, we made it handily to the Wye Valley in Wales and to our B&B, the Old Rectory.

Though this place had been highly reviewed in Trip Advisor, this was a near fail for us.  It was sort of quaint, but in a shabby way.  And, though I love dogs and though the owner’s dogs were so very cute, they were terribly dirty and allowed into the breakfast room, up the stairs, and onto the guest’s bed.  I must raise my guilty hand and say that I did ask to pet the dogs, but they became overwhelming very quickly!  I would probably recommend the Best Western down the road for American visitors.

The good part of our B&B was the location just near the River Wye, and within walking distance of Tintern Abbey.  Also, the breakfast there was amazing!  However, that first night we were just tired and ready to get some sleep.

I can’t begin to tell you how gorgeous the weather was during most of our trip.  Perfect temps, clear skies… walking weather for sure!  And the Wye Valley was soooo green!  We definitely picked the right places to visit this trip.  I tried to create my “last trip ever” to England and am glad I got to take two friends with me who had never seen it before.  It was a glorious triumph for me to be able to see the land I love in such beautiful weather and to show it off as well.  The best part, though, was checking off things for my bucket list that I thought I’d never see!

For those that haven’t read Tintern Abbey, you can read the full text HERE. 

It was a nice hook to see this just after visiting Wordsworth’s home town in the Lake District!

After our tour, we checked out of the B&B and began our southward trek to the small seaside village of Tintagel.

Our B&B was above and beyond anything I could have possibly imagined.  Sharmon and April’s room opened to a million dollar view of the Celtic Sea.  The B&B owners (Julie and Peter) were lovely, and the breakfasts!!! To die for gourmet meals.  Don’t miss the brulee’ed porridge!  Amazing!

Julie mentioned that one guest looked extremely goth, but was a very sweet lady and a very good artist.  We saw her prints and were amazed at how totally beautiful they were.  It even inspired me to redo my bedroom with some mystical prints.

 The next morning at breakfast, we were to meet this artist, Anne Sudworth.  It was hard not to stare… her look was definitely goth, but her face was made up so beautifully that I wondered out loud… “she’s made herself a work of art!”

Anne Sudworth

We were talking about where to go that day, and Anne – in the sweetest quiet and gentle voice told us about a place we should visit called St. Nectan’s Glen.  And so began our southern adventures!  We had driven all over the Lake District, switched cars, faced traffic and roundabouts, got lost in Bromsgrove and found again, ate cockles and laverbread in Wales, and landed like the aliens at Roswell into the mystic land of King Arthur…

And no one died!

Read the finale here.