Langdale 2019

Hartsop

The annual week in the Lakes is part of the ritual that is home from home. My parent's honeymooned here and as a toddler and child, I was taken to Langdale and the Lakes three or four times a year. My first mountain walks were during a school run holiday in my final year at primary school at Stair in Newlands, my first beer was bought at the New Dungeon Ghyll after a morning climb of the Langdale Pikes and my first holiday with teenage friends was youth hostelling for 10 days walking most of the highest fells. I rock climbed, walked the fells and sailed in Windermere with friends during university vacations. I scattered the ashes of one of my best friends on Scafell Pike after he had died in his twenties and in later years competed in Mountain Marathons. 

For the last 35 years, we have returned to Langdale to familiar haunts and pristine landscapes. Every hill has been climbed, every lake visited and most pubs as well. The Lake District is embedded as a familiar baseboard for life, it is constant and largely unchanged but still throws up surprises that enhance its inherent charms.

This year it was the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick, where we saw an excellent production of My Mother Said I Never Should, a wonderfully acted tale of the trials and tribulations of four generations of women in the twentieth century. We found a slate workshop in a shed above Coniston that made practical household goods like cheeseboards with slate from the Elterwater quarry where we stay. My brother and sister visited for a day, the first time we all have been together for several years. Gregor and I had a couple of outings into the hills, we caught up with old friends and we finished the week with another perfect meal at Fellinis Vegeterranean Restaurant in Ambleside. 

It is always a relaxing but active week made easy in the early days of summer before the congestion and crowds arrive during the English school holidays. This year, as we walked favourite paths and climbed known hills, it prompted many memories of the happy years. It conjures up favourite images of people, places and events and allows time for reflections on life’s passages.

Derwentwater

Langdale, the Cumbria Way

Elterwater Quarry

Holehird Gardens

Fellinis Banana Strudel