After arriving at Manchester Airport, we made our way to Lake District. It was mesmerizing with big, clear blue skies and with the sunlight shining on the clear gleaming lake. It is nothing we have seen in Singapore. Inspired by the beautiful scenery, we (were forced to) write/wrote poems. It was really fun, as we could see all the ducks and swans swimming gaily past us in the pond!! Duckies! Anyway, after the short poetry session beside the lake, we boarded a cruise to go to the other side of the lake! The wind was messing with our hair but it's kinda exciting because we hardly do that in Singapore:D As we hit shore, we went for lunch! We were all ravenous and anticipating our first English food there! There were 3 kinds of meat, gammon (a.k.a ham), roast beef and turkey with all the vegetables you can eat. There's much to be jealous of because we also had free flow of ICE CREAM! :) The food was really awesome! It's was a brand new experience for many of us. (Don't be jealous!! :D)
After lunch, we headed to Rydal Mount, William Wordsworth's second residence where he stayed for the last 37 years of his life. We then took a short tour around the house, which was very charming, but also very small. In fact, if you stood in the dining room, you could hear the ceiling creak as other people walked on the second level! It's true, we heard it for ourselves! When we came out of the house, we were immediately greeted by 4 1/2 acres of land that was covered in beautiful flowers. We had a ball of a time wandering around the garden, taking pictures of the flowers and posing for the pictures! Did you know: Rydal Mount is currently owned by Wordsworth's descendants! We can't imagine staying in the house where William Wordsworth died in! It's so creepy. However, photography was not allowed because the flash from the cameras might damage the pictures. D: Aw!
We stayed there for an hour or so before making our way back to the hostel (YHA) and getting assigned to our rooms. The room, though, had no ventilation, other than a small opening at the window. We slept with the sun up even though it was 10pm, because in summer, the sun rises really early, at about 5am, and the sun sets really late, at about 9pm. Maybe even earlier/later! But our rooms faced the lake, and we could wake up to see the lake glistening in the sunlight!
DAY 2: LAKE DISTRICT - PENDLE
Many of us woke up earlier to sit beside the lake and feel the cool breeze against our face, which was really fun. The swans from the other side of the lake swam towards us, too! After breakfast, we made our way to Dove Cottage, William Wordsworth's first residence, where we learnt a few interesting things, such as:
1) At one point, there were 14 people staying in the cramp house. We couldn't imagine such a predicament!
2) William Wordsworth's friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge "fancied" William's sister-in-law, Sara Hutchinson, who stayed with them in Dove Cottage, even though he was married with children! He tried to woo her, but Sara rejected him, causing him to fall into depression and resulted him to write a poem called Dejection
3) The childrens' room was covered in newspaper! Guess why? That's because they had rafters for a ceiling and a stream directly below them, so it was really cold and so they covered the room in newspaper in hopes that it would keep the heat in.
After Dove Cottage, we took a 2 1/2 hour bus ride to Pendle. Along the way, some of us started counting sheep. By the end of the 2 1/2 hours, we managed to count 634 sheep on one side of the bus! We're pretty sure we won't be seeing sheep appearing on the World Wildlife Fund's list of endangered animals anytime soon!
We drove to Pendle Hill where we met this most amazing guide, Simon Entwistle. He had the most fantastic voice and we were immediately attracted to his warm personality. He looked like a person who had walked out of Sherlock Holmes' stories! He led us through a semi-scary trail through Pendle Hill and Clithroe. We're sure you would want to listen to those entrancing and hair-raising stories! Our guide had a flair in storytelling as we were listening attentively to his stories! The Pendle Hill story brought us memories of The Crucible as there were many similarities of the 2 stories:) We dined at Swan and Royal, where Simon told us a chilling story where a heartbroken woman ended her life after which many strange occurrences happened, including taps and lights turning on and off. Also, a crying baby, where no one could trace the sound from, except until workers uncovered the skeleton of a foetus wrapped in newspaper in the attic of the Swan and Royal Hotel! imagine our paranoia when we were eating there! We parted with our awesome guide unwillingly. Many of us were definitely sad to see him go!
Finally, after a long day, we checked into Burnley Travelodge and settled down for a well-deserved rest.
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