Leslie

January 12, 2004

The Wordsworth Home

   Today is our first day in the Lake District. We are staying at the Keswick Country House. It's a beautiful hotel with lots of Victorian charm. Our room is huge. I think it's the biggest one we've had so far by quite a bit.

   Our firt stop today is Rydale Mount, home of the Wordsworth family. The house is fairly simple by today's standards. In its time it must have seemed like a palace. It is still owned by direct descendents of William and Mary Wordsworth. Akiko commented on how intimidating it would be to live in the poet's house. It might be different since they're family. I think it's very generous for them to allow tourists to visit their home when they are not there. That takes a particularly deep sense of respensibility to world heiritage. I don't see a lot of that in the states.

   After looking around the house, I went out to explore the garden, which opened up into the woods which led down to a lake. I was astonished by the wild beauty that dominated the area and seemed to creep up out of the woods towards the simple little house. The vines growing up its walls seemed to be in an effort to reclaim the land from the man-made structure, making it part of the natural landscape.

   Akiko and I wandered towards the lake and found a little waterfall in a stream running through the woods. Everything was covered with a thick kind of moss that I've never seen before. It sprouts little fern-like leaves. It was as if life itself was bursting forth from the even the coldest most barren stones in the ground.

   As a class (more or less), we hiked down to a larger and more imposing waterfall. It consisted of a steep cliff face with water gushing violently out of a hole close to the top. I was less impressed with it than I was with the house on the next cliff, where we were standing. I have no idea when it was built or by whom, but it had a distinctly "upper-class estate" air about it. I wish we could have stayed longer, but we had to rush back to the coach.

   As we drove away, I couldn't help thinking of Dorothy Wordsworth sitting in these very woods, scribbling frantically in her journal in a mad attempt to capture the essence of everythin swirling around her in these magnificent surroundings. I think I would have gotten more out of her journals if I had read them for the first time in the rich setting they originated from.

   Our next stop was Grasmere, where the Wordsworths are buried. It's also the hometown of Beatrix Potter of Peter Rabbit fame. My mother used to Benjamin Bunny to me when I was little. I have found memories of her stories.

   While in Grasmere, we stopped in a little wool shop run by a Scottish family. They were very proud of the craftmanship and the fact that they made most of the rugs and blankets themselves. They were third generation weavers. Being there reminded me of what Graeme said about wool being the measure of wealth before the Industrial Revolution. I was impressed to see that it still meant so much to some people. Their work was beautiful.

   We had a hard time finding a place to eat lunch because it was Monday. A lot of places in the UK are closed on Mondays. I asked one little old lady why that was. she had to think about it for a minuet, but told me that people needed an extra day off in the winter. It was so basic to her she had a hard time explaining it. We finally found a place to eat.

   After lunch we went as a group to the cemetary to look at the Wordsworth graves. We also saw some ducks. They were all looking very intently in the same direction, but when I got close, they all ran into the water and swam to the other side of the stream. several of them started looking in the same direction as before. I never did figure out what they were looking at. It was a little weird.

   After we got back to the hotel, Akiko went for a walk. Part of me feels like I should have gone with her, but I was just too exhusted. I think I slept for three hours before dinner.