Exploring the Lakes District

In the past two and a half weeks since arriving in Grasmere I have had a chance to explore the town as well as some of the neighbouring towns.

Last weekend was the Grasmere Guzzler, a three day beer drinking festival so I found myself at the pub Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. It was a great way to get to know the locals while enjoying some local brews.

I have taken a few day trips to neighbouring towns. I went to Kendal to do some shopping, to Ambleside to visit the lake and the waterfalls and to Keswick to visit some museums. Keswick is home of the Cumberland pencil museum, the worlds only museum dedicated to pencils. I took a tour of the museum learning the process of pencil making as well as viewing the worlds longest pencil. It is 7.91 metres long and weighs 446.36 kilograms and it is yellow, not sure why they chose that colour. The famous Derwent pencils are made in the factory next door to the museum. The newly opened James Bond museum was my next destination. The museum is home of a large collection of vehicles used in the films. There are a few Aston Martins, some BMW's, the hovercraft used in Die Another Day and the jet used in Octopussy. I then headed to the famous cars of the stars museum which features many vehicles used on television and movies. Their most prized possession is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang but my favourites were a Batmobile, Mr Beans Mini and the Delorean time machine as seen in Back to the Future. While in Keswick I also visited Derwent Water a very picturesque lake and the Castlerigg Stone Circle, another set of stones nobody really knows much about.

The last few days there has been sunshine, something I did not expect to see in the Lakes District after a week and a half of constant rain so I went with my housemates Ben and David in search of waterfalls we could use to jump into water. Ben showed us a couple of places and although the water was quite cold it was a lot of fun.

I also took a tour through Dove Cottage, the home of the famous poet William Woodsworth between 1799 to 1808. It was quite interesting and I learnt a lot about Woodsworth as well as Grasmere in general. Work at the Glenthorne is going well and I am enjoying the relaxed lifestyle of Grasmere.