Wednesday, April 24, 2024

We were a bit sore from the first hike but ate another wonderful breakfast, checked out of our room and began our hike to Grasmere. We passed through Rydal Park and Rydal Mount, where Wordsworth spent his last days. It was a beautiful home and we then hiked the Coffin Road named for the fact that it was an old corpse road used in medieval times to carry the deceased to their final resting place, in Grasmere. The trail took us through beautiful scenery until we arrived at Dove Cottage, Wordsworth’s family home. A movie was being filmed and they nastily informed us to get out of the way! They would not tell us what it was but told us it would be on Netflix in 2025 and to watch for it. Hmm?  We had a minute in the store and then walked on to Grasmere itself,  a charming town. We had wonderful tea and scones for our lunch. Mary was introduced to clotted crème and now is a fellow clotted crème lover! Biggest scone I had ever eaten! We went to the Wordsworth Daffodil Garden which was so pretty, due to the time of year. We enjoyed some famous Grasmere gingerbread. It was so nice to travel in the spring and see the lambs and flowers but it was cold. We shopped at a bookstore and others and then feeling pooped, we walked to our b and b, Heidi’s Grasmere Lodge, where our bags were waiting. Although we originally checked in to the wrong room, we did eventually get the right room and although a bit kitschy, it was very cute. And as long as we had a warm bed, we were happy. Actually cleaned up to real clothes and went to another pub, of course, The 1769, near our b and b. Another great meal and beer and we met Charlie, a westie we both loved.

*Dove Cottage is a house on the edge of Grasmere in the Lake District of England. It is best known as the home of the poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy Wordsworth from December 1799 to May 1808, where they spent over eight years of "plain living, but high thinking". During this period, William wrote much of the poetry for which he is remembered today, including his "Ode: Intimations of Immortality", "Ode to Duty", "My Heart Leaps Up" and "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", together with parts of his autobiographical epic, The Prelude.^[1]

William Wordsworth married his wife Mary in 1802, and she and her sister joined the Wordsworths at Dove Cottage. The family quickly expanded, with the arrival of three children in four years, and the Wordsworths left Dove Cottage in 1808 to seek larger lodgings.