My weekend break in the Lake District: from Windermere to Sawrey [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
After ten minutes of queueing, I climbed aboard the ferry and sat on the
top deck, rubbing my hands together to keep them warm. Windermere may be
very beautiful, but it certainly is freezing. Five minutes later, I was cruising
slowly around the lake, with a guide’s voice coming through the speakers
attached to the front end of the top deck. I was informed of the small island
in the middle of the lake, how far it was to Hawkshead, which I planned on
visiting later, and also was shown roughly where Sawrey was, the home of
Beatrix Potter. I also planned on visiting her cottage.
“And over here,” said the guide’s voice as we came to the last
leg of the trip, “are the Windermere houses. Now I can’t tell you
the exact price, but I’ll let you know that they’re in the region
of two million to three million pounds.”
There were gasps of ‘ooh’s and ‘aah’s, as the guide had
just told us all that he was wiping our entire bank accounts to get himself one
of these houses. I looked over towards the houses, with their own little speedboats
bobbing on the water at the bottom of their gardens. I felt incredible envy for
the people that owned them. There they were, with all their luxury and huge bank
account, whereas I occupied a tiny bedsit in the centre of London with only a
few hundred pounds to my name.
After the boat trip, I returned to my car and
drove the half a mile or so down to the car ferry, which would take me over to
the water to Sawrey so that I could then drive up to Hawkshead on the opposite
side of the lake. The getting on to the car ferry proved a huge task: because
of the gap in between the ferry and the ground, I had to carefully manoeuvre
my car on to the ferry in the lowest gear possible. Of course, being me, the
car stalled several times, causing me to use the worst swear words and shout
them out loudly. Thank God the windows were closed.
Once off the ferry on the other side of Lake Windermere,
the drive to Sawrey wasn’t long and I soon found myself in the centre of
the village, which can only be described as ‘quaint’. Sawrey consists
of a few white cottages dotted about in the Cumbria countryside and in amongst
these houses stands, Hill Top Farm cottage, the famous home of Beatrix Potter.
Fortunately I was early because the queue became tremendous. After paying my £5.80
admission fee to enter the house, I crept through the kitchen and the lounge,
imagining Beatrix Potter sitting at the table or by the fireplace, wondering
what new adventures to give to Jemima Puddleduck or Samuel Whiskers. I was told
that the house had been recreated for the film Miss Potter which made it seem
or the more real to me. Upstairs I walked with my tour group around Miss Potter’s
bedroom, gazing at the tiny windows and wondering if she’d ever felt lonely
living in this house alone. Downstairs again, I exited out of the door into the
garden, where the experience really came alive for me.
I spotted the green gate in the garden wall,
the very one that had featured in The Tale of Peter Rabbit. There were also many
vegetable patches including a strawberry patch and original watering cans and
flower pots, still lying there long after the author and illustrator had died.
I could just imagine Jemima Puddleduck waddling through the long grass or Tom
Kitten crawling underneath the trees. In fact, this very house was the one that
featured in ‘The Tale of Tom Kitten’. ...