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smokingbootMy love took me to Bowness-on-Windermere for a Valentines weekend. The hotel was gorgeous, complete with seriously excellent menu and chocolate/champagne/rose combo awaiting us in the bedroom. But even more beautiful was the place itself, and I am still in a dream over it all. What follows is my record, so that I never forget, but my meanderings are very unlikely to interest anybody else. Out of charity I cut and cut again!
We walked out into a twilight of silver and woodsmoke, of seventeenth century pubs and fine, cheap ale. I am used to silver as a poetic conceit; I do not really believe in it. I have seen too many drab pseudo-celtic brooches, and read too many sub-tolkeinien descriptions of silver hair, normally paired with lilac eyes and dragon minions, to consider it meaningful. But this weekend the landscape revealed hills elf-shot with clouds and light, water rippling with that indefinable colour we mean when we say 'shimmer.' Living silver, not some dull thing hammered out of shape against one's skin or in a book. When the sun rose to zenith all that delicacy turned to brilliance. The light met the lake, and the trees walked down to the water's edge, white boled or brown knarled, and drank deep. And all the while, we watched.
Maybe not all the while. We cruised around the islands, and bimbled through amazing art galleries, funky watermills and highly dangerous jewellry shops. We travelled to Little Salkeld and found Long Meg and Her Daughters, a cheery stone circle presided over by an 18 foot high neolithic representation of Marge Simpson in close up. If you don't believe me, go see for yourselves, but be gentle. The whole place smelt of cow dung and grass, tree dressings were still in evidence, and tiny, inconspicuous offerings had been placed at the foot of the stone. A place where pagans come and go, and don't leave too much behind. Sweet.
Down on the Waterfront things got rough. This weekend, I learned two things about swans. One is that however elegant they are in the water, standing right in front of you with their beaks almost at your sternum, they are downright thuggish. Another is that they are evolving to the point where they know that the snack in your hand is not the key: the power lurks in the placky bag in your other hand. But they will let you gently touch their feathers provided you feed them. After that of course, they will get all huffy about the infringement of their personal space, and shit in your general direction. They are much less smart than the ducks, who at least have the sense to paint their feet orange so they never lose them (I have this on Larians' authority, so I know it to be true.)
We travelled over Kirkstone pass, past Ullswater, into Penrith. Ullswater is beautiful but don't bother with Penrith. A place can be historical and banal at the same time, and however the tourism industry milks its links to Wordsworth, Penrith's a wee bit cruddy.
Actually, I remember thinking the same when studying Wordsworth a long time ago. Some illustrious commentator once said that of all the great poets, Wordsworth was the hardest to catch in the act of greatness, which I always translated as meaning he was a bit crap. I have grown somewhat, and know better. Still, there are massive chunks of 'The Prelude' which I know I will never read, and as for 'The White Doe of Rylstone,' my only defence is that I don't know of anybody else who's read it either. However, I admit the poet's power and skill, indeed one of his sonnets (XXXIII) sits somewhere on my LJ. It is a favourite of mine.
Inevitably, that which is truly important can't be written down. How wonderful of him to have arranged all this!
We walked out into a twilight of silver and woodsmoke, of seventeenth century pubs and fine, cheap ale. I am used to silver as a poetic conceit; I do not really believe in it. I have seen too many drab pseudo-celtic brooches, and read too many sub-tolkeinien descriptions of silver hair, normally paired with lilac eyes and dragon minions, to consider it meaningful. But this weekend the landscape revealed hills elf-shot with clouds and light, water rippling with that indefinable colour we mean when we say 'shimmer.' Living silver, not some dull thing hammered out of shape against one's skin or in a book. When the sun rose to zenith all that delicacy turned to brilliance. The light met the lake, and the trees walked down to the water's edge, white boled or brown knarled, and drank deep. And all the while, we watched.
Maybe not all the while. We cruised around the islands, and bimbled through amazing art galleries, funky watermills and highly dangerous jewellry shops. We travelled to Little Salkeld and found Long Meg and Her Daughters, a cheery stone circle presided over by an 18 foot high neolithic representation of Marge Simpson in close up. If you don't believe me, go see for yourselves, but be gentle. The whole place smelt of cow dung and grass, tree dressings were still in evidence, and tiny, inconspicuous offerings had been placed at the foot of the stone. A place where pagans come and go, and don't leave too much behind. Sweet.
Down on the Waterfront things got rough. This weekend, I learned two things about swans. One is that however elegant they are in the water, standing right in front of you with their beaks almost at your sternum, they are downright thuggish. Another is that they are evolving to the point where they know that the snack in your hand is not the key: the power lurks in the placky bag in your other hand. But they will let you gently touch their feathers provided you feed them. After that of course, they will get all huffy about the infringement of their personal space, and shit in your general direction. They are much less smart than the ducks, who at least have the sense to paint their feet orange so they never lose them (I have this on Larians' authority, so I know it to be true.)
We travelled over Kirkstone pass, past Ullswater, into Penrith. Ullswater is beautiful but don't bother with Penrith. A place can be historical and banal at the same time, and however the tourism industry milks its links to Wordsworth, Penrith's a wee bit cruddy.
Actually, I remember thinking the same when studying Wordsworth a long time ago. Some illustrious commentator once said that of all the great poets, Wordsworth was the hardest to catch in the act of greatness, which I always translated as meaning he was a bit crap. I have grown somewhat, and know better. Still, there are massive chunks of 'The Prelude' which I know I will never read, and as for 'The White Doe of Rylstone,' my only defence is that I don't know of anybody else who's read it either. However, I admit the poet's power and skill, indeed one of his sonnets (XXXIII) sits somewhere on my LJ. It is a favourite of mine.
Inevitably, that which is truly important can't be written down. How wonderful of him to have arranged all this!
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