Wednesday June 19, 2019

We woke to the pitter patter of rain on the window. Oh no, I had planned a day walking. A scenic boat ride to Ambleside and a four mile walk from Ambleside to Hawes landing.

By the time we had showered, the rain had stopped and it looked as though the sun might come out. “Rain before seven, clear by eleven”, Mum was right again.

I had asked Shelley to be ready to leave early as we needed to catch the 10:00 boat to Ambleside. She was ready before me. We went to the little café and had a great breakfast again and was at the pier with lots of time to spare. We bought our “walkers ticket” which allows you to get on and off the boat a couple of times.

There are various boat cruises leaving from Bowness.  They are reasonably priced and cover lots of different trips, from a quick ride across to Hawes Landing where you can walk up to Hilltop Cottage, a short cruise on Lake Windermere which doesn\’t stop at any of the docks, a longer lunchtime cruise, a dinner cruise and the Walkers Ticket.  this allows you to get off at Ambleside, get on a small launch to Wrays Castle and then get back on the small launch from Hawes Landing.  Or just hop on and off to Wrays Castle.

It was a lovely cruise to Ambleside passing several large “estate”. One of which was built in the late 18^th century by a wealthy cotton mill owner as his summer estate. It is now a hotel and the “boathouse” is used for a special wedding venue.

We walked into Ambleside which is a small village similar to Bowness. However, it is more geared to walkers and climbers in the area. Most of the shops are outdoor shops with some really nice gear.

At 12:10 we boarded another small launch to go to Wray’s Castle and the start of our walk back to Hawes Landing.

We were walking on a public footpath through the Wray and Claife Estates, both are owned by the National Trust.

We had already walked two miles into Ambleside, I was a little concerned that it would be a bit of a trek for Shelley. She was a little tired as we came into Hawes landing. She said she had walked her feet off to her armpits.

It was a lovely woodland walk, well sign posted and relatively flat. There were a couple of hills but very nice.

We had an ice-cream before taking the launch back to Bowness. After getting of the final launch we sat on the promenade and watched the world go buy. There area a lot of swans, Canada geese, and pigeons all wanting to be fed. You can buy bird seed to feed the birds. All in all a good day.

We had an early dinner at the Albert pub and came back to the B&B to repack our stuff for tomorrows trip down to London.

The saga of the Summer Creams.

Many years ago on one of my trips to visit my Mum and Dad, Shelley asked me to buy a candy called Summer Creams. Christa (her daughter) and Shelley had found these candies in a “Brit” shop in Mississauga and loved them. I searched high and low and could never find them. I thought they were a figment of Shelley’s imagination.

I think it was on Shelley’s list of things to find in the U.K. We were in an old fashioned sweet shop in York and almost found them. After trying every candy in the shop, Shelley decided the closest thing to the “imaginary” sweet was Scottish Rock. However, the lady in the shop did confirm that there was a sweet called summer creams. We couldn’t find any summer creams in York, or in Edinburgh and it looked as though Shelley was going to have to settle with Scottish Rock. On our first morning in Bowness we passed another sweet shop and we popped in. “Do you have summer creams?” asked Shelley. Yes said the lady How much would you like? She got the big jar from the shelf and began to add 100 grams to the weight scale. “A little more” said Shelley – “Christa will be so pleased that I have found them”. “May I try one,” the lady gave her a “summer Cream” Shelley’s face beamed “yes, yes these are the right ones”. “I better have a few more.”

As we left the shop Shelley was tucking into one of the bags of summer creams. – Sorry, Christa you may not get your summer creams after all.