The Last Cinderella Days

On Tour

On the notice board in the passage between kitchen and servery is a Mountain Goat brochure with a fifty per cent staff discount sticker. I'm a sucker for discounts and I've had a hankering to see some country beyond Bowness; each room in the hotel is named for a lake and I've been wanting to meet them for a while.

Mike picked me up at 9.25 and, together with 12 tourists from China and a lovely Indian couple, we went exploring. I don't mean to imply the Chinese travellers weren't lovely but since none of them took my photo (the scale to which I measure loveliness) I never had the opportunity to find out. We drove past the largest lake in England, Lake Windermere, which I see daily from the hotel windows and where I have on occasion dipped my toes. Don't be too impressed for lakes in England aren't terribly big to begin with. Next was Rydal (rather small but ideal for swimming, or so I've been told by fellow staff) before we set our sights on Brotherswater (named for two brothers who had the misfortune to drown there some 300 years ago) and Ullswater (which has the worst bathroom in the hotel to clean).

We stopped on Chestnut Hill to see the 4000-year old Castlerigg Stone Circle, its significance lost eons ago but still worthy of daily troupes of visitors - rather impressive for some misshapen rocks.

Guide Mike offered tidbits of local gossip, most of which I lost somewhere after Derwent Water and before Thirlmire, but at the time I was thoroughly entertained and so sure of remembering it all so I could entertain others that I didn't bother to note them down. I'm afraid you'll actually have to trek out to the Lakes and take the tour with Mike.

We had our lunch hour in Kewsick (and had to be back at the bus at 12.45 sharp or would be left behind) and the rain soon followed. It was market day and I found a jar of lemon curd (lemon curd with natural yoghurt is my current staple) to go in my backpack. Part of the tour was a boat ride around Derwent so we piled on board and all made for the cabin to seek shelter from the wet. We stopped along the way to pick up walkers and deposit them further along the shore. Dressed in wet-weather gear, they collectively sneered at our cosy cabin and opted for the seats outside instead, something I was exceedingly grateful for as I had little desire to share my dry seat with a wet walker.

The afternoon ended with a drive through a mountain pass so steep and the road so narrow, that our driver needed to have a break to relax his nerves. Most fun had all day, especially when a stupid sheep decided to wander onto the road causing a traffic jam. I alighted the bus determined to go on another tour, partly to discover why the company had chosen goats as its preferred animal when the countryside is wool-packed with sheep.

On Tour Again

I'd convinced Monika, my Czech friend with a rather limited understanding of English, of the merits of Mountain Goat tours, so yesterday we set off to the Yorkshire Dales. It's hard enough persuading Monika that dogs 'woof' (and in fact I haven't managed this; I can't even translate the Czech version of dogs barking into something you'd understand) so when our bus driver runs off on linguistic tangents – do you know where the words 'junk' and 'crackpot' come from? Because I now do - translating back to her becomes a far more complex journey than mere sight-seeing.

I love the Dales with their wild moors and a sun that shines far longer than it does in the Lakes, and even more I love the oddities we come across like the buttertubes, rock formations twenty-five meters deep where long-ago farmers stored their butter after returning from markets. Can you imagine if they did that today? I certainly wouldn't be going to the supermarket to pay for butter.

I also discovered rockeries, mostly because the bus driver told Monika and I that we had to get off the bus rather than an instinctive urge on my part to see what was behind the wall, but I'm glad I did. I'm assuming you already know what these are so I won't bother explaining - but they were new to me.

The day ended with a visit to the cheese factory in Swaledale where Monika and I sampled all twenty cheeses and ended up buying ice cream instead, which might be of interest to those people who worry about things like sampling and the effect on consumer spending.

A Walk in the Countryside

It's hard seeing beyond the exhaustion of split shifts but I put on my walking shoes the other day and hopped on a bus to Grasmere – the village, not the lake - a place I've become almost familiar with. I ate lunch in the small square opposite the bookshop where I bought a copy of Bluestockings, a curious account of the first women to attend university.

It's a nice feeling, pack low on your back, seeing other walkers crisscrossing farmers' fields ahead of you, walking in twos or threes, or, like me, going solo. You walk across a few paddocks alongside a thin stream, and all around you are pairs of black and white lambs. Then begins a rather mild climb that brings you to a small waterfall and the entrance to the tarn, a stretch of clear water that on a sunny day might have prompted further scrutiny but today with the grey skies beginning to leak warranted no more than a passing glance and a quick snap as I scurried across to the other side. I had more important things on my mind, like retreat.

On my way back, jumping from stone to stone to avoid the mud (such bothersome stuff), six jets flew overhead – and, since I'd been thinking about Meg Rosoff's How I live Now – an excellent wartime story set in the UK – it made me think what it would be like if those jets, rather than bringing curiosity, brought fear. As luck had it, there were some large bushes to my left so had I been wandering about the country side in wartime I could have dived headfirst into their muddy depths and out of sight – the problem with walking alone is that my mind has too much spare time.


A Bite in the Apple

It was the teaspoons that did it.

We got a new set the other day, causing great excitement among the staff. Such explanations as have you seen them? Well, I never. How shiny – they're really much nicer than the old ones could be heard if you were walking past the kitchen. It was the same with the new sponges the week before, and the glass cloths before that.

I couldn't help but get caught up in the fervor. It was when my pen started to note their existence in my diary that I knew it was time to move on. There are greater things in life than new spoons, no matter how shiny they might be - and by gosh, they really were ever so shiny.

My final evening in the Lakes I went with Matt and Simon, and Kathy and Small Jane to Grasmere for a last walk up the Lion and the Lamb, so called because at some point in time a person in the village declared if you squint this way and that it looks like a great lion resting atop a lamb.

It's a steep climb and if you happen to meet a walker descending, there's a moment of confusion as one wonders how to navigate around the other. Since there's no rule book about such happenings I've decided that lone walkers get right of way and have been doing my best to educate the Lakes District's ramblers.

At the top we sat on the Lion (the Lamb's rather small and doesn't offer as good views), looking out at the three lakes of Grasmere, Windermere and Coniston, and predictably it began to rain, water whispers that barely dampened our shoulders but still brought out irritated grumblings and rain coats.

A rather awful pub meal in Windermere completed the day and I returned to Lindeth Fell for the last time.

I'm thrilled about the prospect of being on the move again – I meet with Ella in just under twenty days and we've Scotland in our sights – but, as is the way, it's sad leaving people behind. I've been here just over two months, a bite in the apple, but given the friendships I've made it feels like far longer.

My Cinderella clothes are packed away, I've farewelled the cleaning cupboard and closed the laundry door, glanced once more at the silver spoons and now I'm done and it's time to catch the train back to Lowestoft where I'll be practising the art of sleeping in for a week or two.