FROM LOCHS TO LAKES
Day 1 Monday 16th March 2026
As is our habit, we went away for Sharon's birthday. This time we were off to the Lake District in Cumbria, via Forgandenny. Sharon had a witches meeting for tea and cake in the morning, so we did not get away until the early afternoon. Nothing, but nothing, gets in the way of a witches meeting! We then stayed for a couple of nights with her sister and brother in law.
We made the journey down the A9 without any drama and were treated to a welcome cup of tea and a cake. Then Sharon and Sandra went to a nearby farm and spent some time with new-born lambs. Quite what the attraction was, I just can't guess! Although, it may have been the heating lamps. Sandra and Chris did not have their oil fired heating or the wood fire on, due to the uncertainties of the international situation. Consequently, their house was freezing, and so were we!
Luckily, Chris was persuaded to use some precious heating oil and some hard won wood and the house soon began to warm up. I guess that is why the girls came home eventually.
After a nice dinner and some catching up we played our usual games of Cribbage. I can't remember who won, and we were soon off to bed.
Day 2 Tuesday 17th March 2026
After breakfast the next morning, we set off to do a few things around Angus. Firstly, we went to Monifieth, where Sharon and Sandra's parents used to live. Last year, Sandra and Chris had planted a vast field of crocuses at the rear of their old house and we wanted to see how they had fared. I may have been exaggerating when I said a vast field. Nonetheless, the bulbs had all come up in sight of the balcony, where their parents used to sit overlooking the golf course, so everybody was pleased.
It was absolutely freezing in the wind, so we did not hang about for too long. Our next stop was Carnoustie, where we have a big family gathering planned for May. We checked out the accommodation, which looked good from the outside. We also looked at the outside eating arrangements, particularly the barbecue situation. Again, that looked really good, so we are confident that we will all have a great time.
The next stop was Pitkerro Cemetery, to check on some more flower arrangements. Once again, the bulbs had come up well and things were looking good. It was still astonishingly cold in the wind, so we did not linger. We drove up to Kingennie for some lunch and to check on arrangements for the big family activity day we will have there in May.
Lunch was very good and we started to drive back to Forgandenny. Sandra and Chris dropped us at Perth Museum, where there was an exhibition on Mary, Queen of Scots. The museum also houses the Stone of Destiny, which neither of us had seen in real life. We had seen a replica at Scone Palace.
The Stone is where all Kings of Scotland have sat at coronation for centuries. It was removed from Scotland by Edward I in 1296 and thereafter kept at Westminster Abbey. It was used in Coronations since then, albeit the crowns of the two countries were not united until 1603. Edward was keen to demonstrate that he was Lord Paramount of Scotland.
On Christmas Day in 1950, 4 students stole the Stone from Westminster and, despite breaking the Stone in their efforts, managed to move it to Arbroath Abbey where the authorities were notified. The repaired Stone returned to Westminster in 1951. It was returned for display in Edinburgh Castle in 1996, from where it went to Westminster for the coronation of Charles III. In 2024, the Stone was put on permanent display at the new Perth Museum, Perth being the closest public museum to Scone Palace where the Kings of Scotland were once crowned.
The Stone is a very potent symbol of Scotland and has been the subject of considerable political debate and sometime vandalism or attempts to hijack it for political purposes.
Accordingly, it is forbidden to photograph it in the museum, so I have no pictures to show.
The exhibition about Mary, Queen of Scots centres round the last letter that she wrote to her brother in law, the King of France before her execution in 1587. The actual letter was on display as was much of the tragic history around Mary, who seems to have something of a hold over people to this day.
Mary, was, of course, beheaded on the order of her cousin, Elizabeth I of England.
Before her execution, Mary had been imprisoned in England. During that time she and her gaoler's wife, embarked upon a huge tapestry known as the Marian Hanging. This has over 100 panels illustrating natural history and mythology. It is thought to also hold hidden meanings about Mary's feelings on captivity as a Queen.
Some of the panels have been photographed and then over worked by stitchers local to Perth to complement the exhibition.
We spent some time at the museum, which was fascinating. Sandra then came and picked us up and we returned to Forgandenny for fizz and early birthday cake!
After a picky buffet, Sandra and I soundly thrashed Chris and Sharon at cribbage before retiring triumphantly to sleep.
Day 3 Wednesday 18th March 2026
After a delicious breakfast, lovingly prepared by Chris, we set off for the The Lakes. I won't bore you with photos of motorways and traffic, but the journey was good. As is our way, we deviated a bit from the road most travelled. Just at Kirkpatrick Fleming, we turned off the A74(M) to go to a place called Browhouses on the Solway Coast.
Now, there's a couple of names to think about. Kirkpatrick Fleming, sounds like one of James Bond's superiors. In fact, it is named after the church, Kirk Patrick, named for St Patrick. Fleming was the name of the local landowners. As if that wasn't enough, there is a cave near by called Bruce's Cave. Yes, this was the cave where Robert the Bruce watched the spider and decided that "if at first you don't succeed try, try, try again". The rest, really is history!
Browhouses, that must mean something as well, surely. However, there is next to no information that I can find about the place. The most likely explanation of the name is that it simply reflects where the houses are - on the brow of a hill or at the edge of a hill or slope. In reality, the few houses that there are sit on the edge of the sea and are backed by very flat land. Hills, there are none.
We had bought a picnic earlier and we had intended to sit and watch wading birds and ducks while doing so. However, the tide was well in and there were no waders. There were some Shelduck and a Curlew, but not too much to be excited about.
After a nice little picnic, we went for a wee walk in front of the few dinky cottages.
We crossed the burn, which seems to be part of a wider drainage ditch system.
However, we soon realised that we had set off with the wrong shoes on and had to return to the car and get back on our way. I expect we would have seen a great deal more bird life if the tide had been out!
It didn't take us too long to get back to the motorway and on our way.
We arrived at the Haweswater Hotel in the middle of the afternoon, in the sun shine, with a very pleasant temperature. Pleasant enough to check out our room and then get down to the terrace for a cold drink. This was the front door and our room was the one upstairs with the open window!
This was the view from our bedroom window.
This was the terrace below, where we were going as soon as possible.
Here I am waiting on my cold beer to arrive.
Here is Sharon enjoying a nice glass of fizz. As you can see, the beer had arrived!
The hotel had a nice lounge, with the same views over the lake.
It also had nice gardens to the side.
The lake really was like glass.
Once we had settled in and had a wee rest after our drive, it was time for dinner.
We started with a home-made brioche bread with a herb crumb and whipped butter. It was absolutely stupendous. So good, in fact, that we had it every night we were there!
Next up were some little snacks. From the top, little choux buns filled with sweetcorn mousse. Then crab in beetroot pastry, pea gel, beetroot pearls and gherkin. Even for a beetroot sceptic like me, this was excellent. Then what turned out to be the star of the show, an incredibly crispy, light cauliflower fritter/popcorn/honeycomb thing, with wee dots of a black garlic mousse. It was hard to describe what it was, but it was very good, indeed.
Sharon had an open lasagne of mushrooms, which she thoroughly enjoyed.
I had the very good chicken ballotine with a sage and chicken mousse stuffing. What you can't see on the plate was the garlicky potato terrine underneath the greens. It was lovely.
Sticky toffee pudding is served everywhere in the Lake District, so it would have been rude not to try this one. We shared one and it came on a lake of sauce. It was very good, indeed.
A great meal to finish a good day.
Day 4 Thursday 19th March 2026
Sharon's birthday and a fittingly bright and sunny day.
A perfect day to get out and do a bit of exploring. So, after breakfast, we headed north to Ullswater and our planned walk at Aira Force.
Aira Force is nothing to do with the RAF, although just as we arrived 2 RAF F35s roared over the valley as we were trying to pay for parking!
Aira Force is actually a waterfall. Aira derives from the Norse eyrr meaning gravel bank and there is a gravel bank where the river debouches into Ullswater. The Norse for river is a so it is the river at the gravel bank. Fors is the Viking word for waterfall and it is commonly used throughout much of the north of England with the English spelling of force.
The area around the waterfall was landscaped by the Howard family in the 18th and 19th Centuries. The Howards are the Dukes of Norfolk and own nearby Greystoke Castle. Greystoke became famous as the ancestral home of Tarzan in the books by Edgar Rice-Burroughs. There is no real connection, Rice-Burroughs merely visited Greystoke and used the name.
Aira Force is also known for an association with William Wordsworth. Not so much for the daffodils but for several other poems which mention the site, notably "The Somnambulist".
"List, ye who pass by Lyulph's Tower
At eve; how softly then
Doth Aira-force, that torrent hoarse,
Speak from the woody glen!
Fit music for a solemn vale!
And holier seems the ground
To him who catches on the gale
The spirit of a mournful tale,
embodied in the sound.
That first verse hints at what is a far from happy tale of love and loss.
Well, we were here for a nice walk and, at the time, we knew nothing of the poem or its poignant tale of Lady Emma and Sir Eglamore, which might have been just as well. The star crossed lovers were separated because Sir Eglamore was a busy knight, often off fighting and so leaving his love alone. She became distracted and lonely. She did not sleep well, and started sleep walking. She wandered up to the waterfall one night, which happened to be the night that Sir Eglamore returned. She stood, asleep and dreaming, by the side of the falls and apparently did not hear him shout to her. He approached her and touched her shoulder, she stumbled and fell into the falls! Not a happy ending.
We were much more concerned with Wordsworth's host of golden daffodils at the start of the walk. Actually, host was his second attempt. When the poem was first written it was a host of dancing daffodils. He changed it a few years later!
We got halfway up the walk, where there was a bit of a view of Ullswater.
Looking the other way, we could see the first of the waterfalls, which is the one called Aira Force. It falls 66 feet and is pretty spectacular, even from a bit of a distance.
Waterfalls are one of these things that draw the eye. It is impossible not to stand and stare. There seems to be something irresistible about the raw force of water crashing down onto rocks. You know it has taken geological time to get to this stage. It will continue like this for unimaginable spans of time into the future
This might look like any old bridge, but it really isn't. It is about 100 years old and it is an unusual design in that the stones are vertical, whereas the fashion in Cumbria was for horizontal stonework. It is also a commemorative bridge built in memory of Sir Cecil Spring Rice. He was ambassador to the USA until 1918. He was instrumental in ending American neutrality during the first world war. He was also Teddy Roosevelt's best man!
He was born into an Anglo-Irish family, but his father died when he was 11, and he was raised at his mother's home nearby to the waterfall.
This is the other bridge over the falls here. It is built more traditionally, with horizontal stone coursing. It commemorates two other members of the Spring Rice family, Stephen, who was a senior civil servant and Gerald, who was killed in 1916 in France during the First World War. All three were brothers.
We carried on up the hill to High Force, a smaller falls than Aira, but quite picturesque.
As if the daffodils were not evidence enough of Spring, there were a few hardy Primroses about. Primroses are a native plant and are among the first to bloom in woodlands. This makes them important for butterflies and other insects at times when nectar sources are in short supply. They can bloom from late December until May. They signify eternal love and, when planted near doorways will protect the home from fairies.
Yet further up the hill, is High Cascades. No real waterfall here, but another pleasant spot to stop and look about.
That was as far up the path we were going, it was all downhill from here for us.
It had been a really nice walk and the weather had been kind.
We had asked the hotel to provide a packed lunch for us, so we now had to find somewhere to eat it.
We found just the very spot - Lowther Castle. It wasn't too far from Aira Force and it promised at least a bench in a garden. In fact, it turned out to be much more grand than your average picnic site.
It is hard to believe on first sight, but the Castle is actually a ruin. It was originally built in the early 19th Century on the site of two earlier houses. It was built for William Lowther, the First Earl of Lonsdale. William had inherited the estate from his uncle, Sir James Lowther, who was a bit of a rogue, by all accounts. He had gone into debt to William Wordsworth's father. When William came into the inheritance he paid off the debt with interest and became a friend of Wordsworth. Naturally Wordsworth repaid this friendship with a poem or two. Indeed, Lowther Castle was the subject of many a verse as well as a painting by Turner!
I would have to say it is no surprise, it is an imposing building, albeit a bit on the overblown side for my taste.
The Lowther family were fabulously wealthy and the Castle reflected that. However, things went downhill somewhat with the inheritance of the 5th Earl, Hugh in 1892. Before that he had married Lady Grace Gordon, daughter of the Marquess of Huntly. Her family disapproved as Hugh was not, at that time, wealthy, nor was he thought to be very responsible. This seemed to be borne out when his huge investment in cattle in America collapsed and he was saved from bankruptcy by the Lowther family.
However, his elder brother died in his twenties and Hugh unexpectedly became the 5th Earl. As the second son, he had not been trained to administer a large estate. Additionally, his wife, Grace had fallen from her horse while hunting. She was pregnant at the time and lost the baby and could have no further children. The lack of a direct heir merely encouraged Hugh to be more and more extravagant. He did, however, have a younger brother, who he seemed to have forgotten would inherit. Hugh's spending seemed to know no bounds. He had footmen, and a master of music for his 24 piece orchestra that accompanied him on his travels. His family would travel by special, private train. He entertained the German Kaiser, and other European royalty before the First World War. After the war, he bought racehorses which failed to deliver any real success. Soon he was forced to sell off some of his other properties. The closure of his coal mines hastened his fall and he left the Castle in 1935.
The Castle was requisitioned by the Army during the Second World War. Tanks were stationed there and the grounds and castle were damaged during their stay. Hugh died and his brother Lancelot, inherited the Castle and enormous debts. He was forced to sell many of the family treasures in an attempt to keep afloat. He died in 1953 and James, his Grandson inherited.
James wanted to concentrate on farming the estate and he saw the Castle as an extravagance. On his return from the war he was reputed to have said the Castle exemplified "gross imperial decadence during a period of abject poverty". He unsuccessfully offered to gift the castle to local authorities, but they declined and, so, he removed the roof and demolished some of the stonework. The grounds became home to pigs, broiler hens and commercial forestry. After the Earl's death in 2006, considerable partnership working has given rise to a huge improvement on the fabric of the building and the gardens and the site is now open to visitors and work continues to restore a measure of the grandeur that once existed here.
Much of it is still ruinous, but it does command a degree of awe and a sense of wonder about how it really looked in its heyday.
It must have been fabulous.
From the Castle, we wandered through the partially restored gardens, passing the Roman Bath. This is actually thought to be an actual Roman Bath and there is one very similar to it in the Vatican!. It was used by soldiers during the war, so I declined to take advantage!
The Japanese Garden was lacking in colour at this time of year, but it does hint at what it might become.
The Rose Garden has a playful steel bower resembling rose thorns.
We were needing lunch by now and had found ourselves at the Jubilee Summerhouse. There was a nearby bench enjoying fine views over the Lowther River and valley. The Summerhouse was erected as part of the celebrations for Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee in 1897. When they attended the Lowther Horse Driving Trials, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip would take tea here. Little did they expect that we would follow on with a ham sandwich and some crisps and fruit. We actually spent some time here chatting to a couple of locals who had farmed in the valley below us before they had retired. They were bemoaning the loss of farms and livestock hereabouts as the land is undergoing a programme of rewilding.
After our interesting lunch interlude, we walked back to the Castle, from the other side, which afforded us a different view of this interesting and storied place.
Time to get back to the hotel for a bit of a rest and refresh before our dinner.
We were having the tasting menu tonight and we started with the same wonderful bread and butter that we had yesterday. Then we had a confit duck terrine on toasted brioche with pickled gherkin, fig jam and a very intense orange jelly. We liked that a lot.
Our next course was a piece of cod fillet, crushed pea, potato lattice and a vanilla velouté. We liked that as well.
I had 11 hour slow cooked pork belly, with mash, cabbage, cider jus and pressed apple. I really enjoyed that immensely.
Our first dessert was poached plum, aerated tonka bean custard and cinnamon crumb. It was very good, indeed.
The next course was supposed to be sticky toffee pudding. Again, Sharon spoke to the chef to explain that we had had that the night before and, so, could we have the frangipane as a substitute? Yes we could, he said.
However, sticky toffee pudding arrived. Before we could say anything, he realised the error and was abjectly apologetic. He offered to change the dessert, but we felt sorry for him and ate the sticky toffee, which was exceptional again, although there was a great deal less sauce!
To compensate for the pudding problem, we were treated to a very nice glass of port by way of recompense. Very nice it was, too.
After dinner, we had a wee wander outside and caught the end of the day reflected in the lake.
Day 5 Friday 20th March 2026
We were up reasonably sharpish today as we wanted to get to the end of the road and have a bit of a walk before lunch with an old friend. It isn't very far to reach the car park, but we were far from the first to get there. It was absolutely mobbed, but we did manage to get a space!
Time was not on our side, so we decided against any of the major walks in the hills, opting instead to walk along the path near the northern shore of the lake. The path starts at the end of the lake and you get good views along the length of the water.
The presence of walls and fences hinted at what might have been here before the old lake was dammed and flooded to cover a much greater area than previously.
It was pretty easy walking along a well worn path in the sunshine.
From the car park, there were paths heading off in all directions. Instead of walking where we were, we could have gone into the surrounding hills, which explains the popularity of the car park. Given we don't really do hills, that was another, more compelling reason for sticking to the low level path.
However, our path was interesting and well worth avoiding the hills for.
There was the odd enigmatic ruin near to the wall running alongside much of the path. Whilst the ruins were certainly old, I couldn't tell for sure if they pre or post dated the flooding of the valley. I'm pretty sure they were there long before the dam.
The vegetation was quite stunted, so I guess the wind, deer and climate can all be a bit of an inhibition hereabouts.
We had been advised at the car park by a couple of walkers to go to The Rigg, where there were great views up the lake. They were not wrong.
The spit of land in the mid left of the photo is called Speaking Crag. I wish I knew why, but I have been unable to find any information behind the name. Having said that, there is a Gate Crag to the south and Castle Crag to the north is the site of an Iron Age fort, so perhaps the place names derive from that ancient landscape.
It is a very fine view and well worth taking some time to enjoy.
The view in the opposite direction isn't too shabby either.
We persuaded a couple of passing walkers to take a photo of both of us, with the view behind.
Looking downhill, which is where we would have gone, had we had the time. There is a pile of stones just visible to the left of the two yellow shirted walkers in the photo. They, I think are the remains of Riggside House. I assume this was once a substantial building of some significance.
With time against us, we head pack to the car park, which had become even more congested and cars were now stretched out along the access road.
We cross Mardale Beck to get back to the car.
That really was a fine walk and it would have been good to go a bit further out, but we had to get to the Mardale Inn in Bampton. We were due to meet one of my old friends, also Bob, from Planning School in Dundee.
We were a little early for lunch, so we had a wander around the village. It was a very pretty little place and we found ourselves down by the River Lowther in the sun. It really was very nice, indeed.
The Mardale Inn is an interesting place. There used to be two pubs in the village. The Mardale closed in 2018. The Crown and Mitre failed to re-open to the public after Covid. A Community Benefit Society was formed to save a pub for the valley, ultimately raising the funds needed to buy the Mardale in 2022. They have big plans for the future and the future of a village pub seems well assured .
Just as well, really, given that we were meeting Bob for lunch! Bob, Sharon and I were at Duncan of Jordanstone College of art 50 years ago, which wasn't yesterday. We had a lot to catch up on. Sadly, part of that was the passing of Bob's wife, Lindsay, late last year. We spent a lot of time over and after lunch, which seemed to pass all too quickly. It is remarkable how easy it is to pick up with some people even when we haven't met for maybe years.
On Bob's advice, Sharon and I decided to go to Shap Abbey before we go back to our hotel.
It was a bit of a convoluted route to the Abbey, which has a truly bucolic setting. The founding Premonstratensian Order was known for building their monasteries in remote places.
The Abbey remains are surprisingly massive for something that is at least 500 years old. The Abbey complex originally dates from about 1200.
The Abbey closed in 1540 and gradually stone from the site was robbed and used elsewhere. Some of the more ornate pieces even went to Lowther Castle!
Like all of these ruins, it is a fascinating place to wander around. Sharon always says how interesting it would be to be able go back and see exactly how people lived in the past
If only the walls could talk.
I would be a bit taken aback if whoever laid here was to suddenly appear and start a conversation!
The site is right by the River Lowther. The Abbey precinct contained a mill and fishponds. Doubtless water was diverted from the river to turn the mill and feed the ponds.
We also spent a little while watching a Dipper dance among the stones.
We also sat for a while and watched the sun move around until it shone through the windows of the tower.
It really was a restful place and the sunshine capped off the day.
This is rooted in changes to rules of succession in farming in the 15th Century England. Each farmer could add up to 8 acres of moor to the original holding for every son that inherited the farm. This led to an explosion in enclosure of land.
Naturally, this was a bit haphazard and tended to involve walls taking the line of least resistance across the landscape, so they followed contours rather than straight lines. That makes older walls a bit easier to spot on the ground.
Anyway, Sharon was so fascinated by the walls, that we tried to take some photos to be emblematic of our trip.
Naturally, the photos show lots of straight lines, because they are built on the edge of roads, which were probably once just tracks. I also didn't know about the more random forces shaping the agricultural landscape, so didn't know what to look for.
As a bit of an aside, the moss covered walls are important habitats for all sorts of animals. birds, reptiles and insects.
The walls here are much more organic in their alignment, so they might well be very old.
Back at the hotel, there was a drawing on the wall of the stairwell. This showed the previous extent of the lake in black, as against the blue of the lake as it is now.
The lake was dammed and flooded in 1937 to provide drinking water for Manchester. The hotel was built at the same time. In fact, the hotel was built as some form of compensation for the families displaced by the flood waters. That date explains the remnants of Art Deco style particularly on the ground floor of the building.
As you might expect, people were unhappy to be forcibly removed from houses that they might have lived in for generations. A church, and the village pub, as well as houses and farms, were inundated at the far end of the lake, where we had been walking that morning. When water levels fall very low, the remnants of the villages are exposed and thousands of visitors come to see what remains. It is as if there is a lost world, just out of sight. The ruins we saw in the morning are echoes of that, as is the floor of the dining room in the hotel.
That was once a ballroom and the floor still retains the somewhat ghostly imprints of high heeled shoes that once tripped across the floor.
Little did we really know that history when we had taken in this view in the morning.
Luckily, there were old pictures dotted around the bar when we went for dinner in the evening. It really is a fascinating thing. Once again, it makes you want to go back in time, just to get a glimpse of what is now lost forever.
However, the here and now was all about our last dinner, which we thought should be fairly casual, hence we were in the bar and not the dining room.
We started with the beautiful bread that we had every other night. If I could replicate that, I would be very happy, indeed.
Next, we had a perfect sirloin steak and definitely the best chips I have ever eaten - and I've probably eaten more chips than is good for me! They were magnificent. The accompanying caramelised onions were pretty good, too. We could have had a choice of sauces, but sometimes you just want nothing fancy with a nice steak. Frankly, I would have eaten a bucket of the chips, perhaps with a bit of mayo!
We shared the chef's signature Chocolate Box, which was decadently delicious.
A very good end to our last day here.
Day 6 Saturday 21st March 2026
It was another fine day to wake up to. It really is a very good view to look out on first thing in the morning. Well, it is, so long as the sky is blue and the sun is shining. I'm sure there are other days when it is not quite so good.
]We were in no hurry to leave, so we had a leisurely breakfast and a last look along the lake. This view is towards Whelther Crags, the name of our room.
Our journey home went without incident and in less than six hours, Sharon was able to put daffodils in water. Bob had picked them from his garden for her birthday.
It had been a great break, but, as always, it was good to get home as well.
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