Tapp's Travels

At the end of the last episode, the story was left hanging.  We were heading out of Scotland towards the Lake District.  As we approached the border where the M74 from Glasgow transmogrifies seamlessly into the M6 near Gretna, the traffic ahead came to a standstill.  We just had time to turn off the main road into Gretna where we spent the next few hours gradually easing through the town.  All the traffic coming north had been diverted through Gretna in the opposite direction.  People coming south from Scotland had allegedly spent up to seven hours going nowhere!

It transpired that a truck driver had lost control of his “artic”, hit the central reservation, bounced off a few cars, slammed into a bridge and ended up on it’s side half on the wrong carriageway.  Sadly, another fatal accident.  That’s four incidents we have been associated with so far this trip!  Four too many.  And as we left Gretna onto a spookily deserted motorway, we had to cross the bridge which had been hit by the lorry.  I’m guessing that that would later have been closed to traffic “until inspected”.  But “later” suited us – else we might still have been camped in Gretna considering another marriage!

Glenda had done her research on available target sites very well.  The place we had stayed before at Askew Rigg was fully booked for our first night.  A misfortune which later turned out to be extremely FORTUNATE.  We ended up in a much more sheltered spot a couple of miles further south, Wallthwaite Farm.

The view out the front window looking towards Blencathra.  We aren’t stalking you Wynn, but it’s great to see you as you turn up in Keswick for an 85th birthday party.  So it’s lunch for three at the Horse and Farrier in Thelkeld!

Storm Amy called by – and we spent 48 hours in a caravan which was rocking and rolling day and night.  Howling gales blasted us from the west.  Squally showers merged into a continous downpour.  The gentle babbling brook which ran down the side of our field changed into a terrible torrent.  At it’s worst the wind was blowing the tops of the standing waves adding to the atmospheric moisture content.

Gusts in the area were recorded at 90 mph.  We were so glad we weren’t camped a mile up the road.  The site we had wanted to stay at was much more open and would have been EXTREMELY frightening.  As it was, the row of trees on the banks of our stream gave us some protection from the wind and left us just “VERY frightened”!  On the down side, we had to avoid flying branches.  This 20 foot branch blocked the entrance to our field so I had to drag it out of the way!

There were power lines down all over the place.  We were without electricity all of one day.  The A66, the main road to Keswick, was closed for periods.  First by floods and fallen trees.  And later by teams of workmen removing the trees.

A couple of days later, we visited Rothay Garden Hotel in Grasmere.  They had had a lucky escape when one of their mature trees collapsed under the strain of Amy.

It missed all the hotel’s buildings, all the garden lights and all the cars in the carpark.  It even missed all the ornamental flower beds.  They were so lucky – and their coffees were delightful.

For us, an essential part of any visit to this part of the Lakes is a walk up the strenuously flat path from Skelwith Bridge beside the River Brathay and Elterwater …

… to the bridge at Langdale.  Langdale was where we celebrated our honeymoon.

In those days we were able to walk along the ridge to the Langdale Pikes seen in the background here …

That’s no longer an option.  We stay on much more horizontal paths – here as the sun prepares to set …

… we beat a hasty retreat.  Home before dark?  Unlikely!

One damp and soggy morning we visited Keswick – the home of pencils, the biggest pencil ever AND the “spy pencil”!

Allegedly, a farmer found a huge deposit of graphite in Borrowdale in the 1550s.  At first, this was used to mark his sheep, but later found it’s way into what became known as pencils.  The Derwent Pencil Museum in Keswick is home to the world’s largest coloured pencil, which measures almost 8 metres long.  That’s longer than our house on wheels!

During WW2 some bright spark in the Derwent Pencil Company developed pencils for spies with secret compartments containing rolled up maps for escaped prisoners.  It is thought by some that this inventor was the inspiration for the character “Q” in the James Bond books…  I’m guessing that the mega-8m-long-pencil would have come with a concealed tent, cooking gear and a supply of canned food!

However, it is true that a German-Swiss naturalist, Conrad Gesner, “first described” a writing instrument with graphite inserted into a wooden holder in the late 1550s.  The internet also lists a Frenchman man as the inventor of the pencil in 1775.  By this stage, the humble pencil had a core of a baked graphite/clay mixture.  The more clay, the “harder” the pencil.

Clearly, the “invention” involved a number of steps of improvement!

Keswick was also the birthplace of the first mountain rescue unit in the UK, originally called Borrowdale Mountain Rescue.

All good northern towns seem to have their Moot Halls in their market squares.  Keswick is no exception.  The clock tower here has a “one-handed” clock.  A deliberate design.  There was no need for precise timekeeping when it was installed!  The town still reflects this casual approach to time keeping.

Christmas decorations are being installed – in the first week of October!

Our car is indicating it needs an oil service.  Not convenient!  We still have at least 1,000 miles motoring before we get home.  Most garages have a two or three weeks waiting list.  We need some insider assistance.  We need to visit an interior design boutique in Penrith …