Lifelong Learning Trip--part 2

Ginny, Flo, and Lynn rest by the riverside near Skelwith Bridge.

Laurie stands in front of Skelwith Bridge.

The group waits for the bus in Ambleside.

A stunning bank of irises in the garden at Rayrigg Hall.

Diana and Dave (in the center) make a group of Americans feel very welcome.

The path towards Easedale.

Allison captures the view.

Debbie stands alone with her thoughts and nature.

The days just keep getting better and better.  Wednesday was the day to hike to Hawkshead.  Skelwith Bridge was our halfway stop, and the group enjoyed a scrumptious lunch at Chester’s Café.  From Skelwith, half the group continued on to Hawkshead while the other half enjoyed relaxing by the river and then took the bus onward.  Unfortunately, Wordsworth’s school in Hawkshead was closed “due to illness.”  The bus group had just enough time to look around Hawkshead and get the feel of the place when the hiking group and the return bus arrived at the same time.  Hikers came in happy and inspired.  The evening was a real treat—dinner at Diana and Dave Matthews’s home at Rayrigg Hall, a beautiful manor home which was begun possibly as early as the 1300 and whose building stopped in the late 1700s.  As beautiful as the house and grounds were, the graciousness of the hosts outshone both.  We were made to feel most welcome—an American flag flew from the flagpole in the garden!  We heard stories about the history of the house and its most famous resident, abolitionist and friend of Wordsworth, William Wilberforce.

The next day was one I have waited for for some time.  It has long been my desire to include our British friends in the activities offered by Principia, and Thursday  saw the first fruits of that desire.  Five local Christian Scientists arrived at the Grasmere Village Green to join us for a full day, beginning with a hike around Grasmere Lake (for those who don’t know, Principia College is a university for Christian Scientists).  We stopped at the shore of the lake for lunch and for a brief testimony meeting.  It was a wonderful time of inspiration and sharing.  After the lunch, we reconvened at the Wordsworth Trust where the group enjoyed the special exhibit on Dorothy Wordsworth.  Next, Jeff Cowton introduced the group to the world of curation in the library.  The highlight for the group was the opportunity to work with facsimiles of the beginnings of the poem “Old Man Travelling,” which I had read from Lyrical Ballads at lunchtime.  We saw how Wordsworth worked and reworked images until they feel into their final poetic forms.  In this case, the lines he fashioned became two poems, “Old Man Travelling” and “The Old Cumberland Beggar.” But by far, the highlight of the day was dinner inside Dove Cottage.  Wilf’s provided a delicious dinner of typical food from Wordsworth’s era—poached trout, fresh spinach, pickled vegetables and bread.  While the food was fabulous, it was the experience of gathering around the fireplace as the Wordsworth’s would have done that felt so special—that an a very moving reading of Wordsworth’s poem, “Michael.” Jeff Cowton started us off with the reading.  I’ve wanted to hear Jeff read a poem by Wordsworth since I first came here as his northern accent would have been close to the one Wordsworth had.  During his years at Cambridge, Wordsworth was teased for this northern accent, but listening to Jeff read (and John and Roger after—both northerners), one could hear the original cadences and tones, something lost in either an American accent or a received British accent.  We will all of us remember this night with its candlelight atmosphere and the echo of words coming to us in fresh ways 200 years after their first composition in the very house in which we were sitting.

Today found half the group taking a break from hiking to enjoy more of Grasmere.  Some went shopping; others returned to the museum to read the exhibit at greater leisure.  A small group of us hiked to Easedale Tarn.  The day started out in an unpromising way with pouring rain, but by the time we left, the rain had dwindled to a mist, and except for a few brief moments of actual rain and a few misty moments, the hike was dry and cool.  The ever resourceful Chuck Wilcoxen spread a tarp on the ground in the shelter of a hill so that we might have a comfortable picnic lunch. The view was outstanding.  And the weather kept enough people off the trail to make us feel as if we had the fell all to ourselves.  

Chris and I said goodbye to the group at the bus stop.  They headed off towards Keswick to catch another bus to Stonethwaite where the Borrowdale YHA awaits them.  Originally we thought the group would hike to Borrowdale, but the clouds hanging over the ridges made that hike impossible.  Nevermind.  Everyone had a wonderful day without the hike to Borrowdale, and I imagine that their arrival in the valley will be just as sweet.  It’s an idyllic valley that I am sure they will enjoy the peace and quiet of the scene.  Tomorrow they walk from Borrowdale to Keswick, and I will join them at Greta Hall, Coleridge’s home, for dinner.