Day 425: Climbing chocolatiers

23/09/2022

This morning when we woke up it was super foggy but by the time we had fished Lachlan out of the saucepan cupboard it had turned into an incredible day, a gazillion times better than yesterday. We were excited as we made our way back up Windemere to Ambleside.

As Dad was unpacking the Batmobile from the roof box, Eloise yelled out, she had a much better idea, “Emma’s bike Dad, Dad, DAD!!! Emma’s bike!”, thanks Emma.

We grabbed another Costa coffee, albeit not the mega one, and a “spoooky cat” biscuit, it seems to be the way to start the day in the Lake Districit.

Full of “spooooky cat” energy, Eloise powered Lachlan along from shop to shop all the way to The National Trust Bridge House.

Bridge House was built over Stock Ghyll more than 300 years ago, probably as a summer house and apple store for Ambleside Hall. It was purchased by local people in 1926 and given to the National Trust. Listed Grade I, the building is now used as an information centre for the National Trust, and is part of the Trust’s Windermere and Troutbeck property. The building was depicted by the Victorian landscapist Lewis Pinhorn Wood (1848-1918) in his late 19th century work The Cobbler’s Shop on the Bridge.

Once the parking had expired we made our move down the western side of Windermere to a small village called Hawkshead. The girls were on a mission, the boys were just along for the ride.

The girls had found another Beatrix Potter store, not too hard in the Lake District. They were were a little dissapointed by the lack of sweet merch at The World of Beatrix Potter Attraction yesterday. They splashed out on a copy of every story ever written about everything, lots of books. Lucky Lachlan is obessed with books at the moment.

We bumped into a cute little cafe, turns out it was “deeelliciousss”, which was lucky because someone was getting hangry, guess who.

After lunch we split up, Dad took Lachlan on a very steep walk up to St Michael and All Angels Church.

St Michael and All Angels Church is in the village of Hawkshead, Cumbria, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Windermere, the archdeaconry of Westmorland and Furness, and the diocese of Carlisle… The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. Hyde and Pevsner, in the Buildings of England series, describe it as being “one of the best Lake District churches”. A chapel existed on the site in the 12th century, which was extended to the length of the present church in about 1300. The north and south aisles were added in 1500… In 1965 a new organ was installed, which allowed the creation of a chapel dedicated to St James.

Lachlan must not have been impressed by Dad’s jokes and nodded off fast to sleep. Dad carefully dashed down to find the girls preparing for their chocolate making class. Eloise was having the time of her life and paid close attention to the teacher. She could not stop bouncing up and down she was having so much fun.

Full of chocolate we needed some exercise and to make the most of this glorious weather. It was a short drive south to Grizedale Forest where we strapped on the Osprey offspring. Dad was in two minds about this. Keen for a walk, but it had been a while since carrying Eloise, plus she had at least an extra couple kilograms of chocolate.

Not really sure what we were getting ourselves into, we headed to the visitors centre to select a walk. We checked out the board for the ‘Fensom Special’, usually the steepest but shortest walk climb, “best bang for your buck” according to Liam, great…

Can confirm, Eloise has grown a lot. We got off to a bit of shaky start as we had to walk past the playground, Eloise was not happy that we did not stop and declared, “that’s it, no, take me back right now, I’m not going in Emma’s bag, everrrrr again! Huff”.

Almost a kilometer from the top Eloise had calmed down and was desperate to walk. Sounded like a win-win for Dad.

Lachlan was taking it all in and had a good grasp of his reins for when Super Mum dared to slow down.

We could not believe how Eloise was doing this, she must have been riding a sugar high. She was setting a cracking pace.

We had made it to the summit and our first English trig point, Eloise was amazing.

Darryl was primed and ready for action.

Now the tricky bit, heading down. Luckily Lachlan only has one speed, Fast!

After almost a couple of kilometers of walking, Eloise cut a deal with Dad. The only way she was going back in Emma’s bag was if she could still carry her walking stick which she had become quite fond of.

There was no chance the kids were going to let us carry them past the playground a second time. Good excuse for a sit down if you ask me.

For dessert, it was Eloise’s special dinosaur chocolate. Yummy, she did not take it easy on the mould, it was almost solid. We were concerned that Lachlan would feel left out, but he happily retreated back to his saucepan cupboard where his day began.

In London, “an emotional Roger Federer has lost his final professional tennis match, playing doubles alongside Rafael Nadal in the Laver Cup”. If we had known it was his last match earlier we may have head further south.

Sad times, we will leave this hear for you all to enjoy the ninth new Wonder of the World, the Roger Federer backhand.