Happy Easter

Happy Easter.

I hope you are all enjoying your weekend.

Me, I'm staying at my sister's

with her family.

It's been dull most of the day

here in Cumbria.

But the sun did get out eventually at about five o'clock.

So me and my sister took ourselves off for a walk.

What a difference,

there's actually flowers blooming outside.

When did they appear?

Daffodils and tulips flowering together.

I seem to think that the daffodils usually arrive before the tulips.

I always like to stop and look back at this row of cottages.

And then stop a bit further up the hill

and look over towards the east.

Lovely blue sky.

Maybe you can just see a bit of snow over there on the Pennines.

Earlier in the week

we took ourselves off into the Lake District

just after it had been snowing.

I'll have to show you the photos I took.

So pretty.

Meanwhile here are two photos

that I took of a window display in Keswick.

I always take the opportunity to visit this shop when I can.

And until I get back to show you those photos,

do help yourself to a chocolate

or two.

These are all the way from Germany.

I just didn't get round to

posting them here before I left. 

Wooded Walk Part Two

So to continue our walk,

and where I left off yesterday...

more fallen trees!

But before we got to them,

Jewel heard, smelt,

or saw something.

A deer most probably.

She got all excited,

and jumped around a bit.

You can see her here looking all alert.

And here she is jumping over one of the fallen trees.

We did eventually make it as far as here in the photo below,

where we can overlook the river.

Unfortunately not an inspiring photo of a barge.

The sky is still blue.

From our vantage point overlooking the river,

we can follow it's course

and see Bernkastel in the distance.

Can you see the castle on the hill?

I watched as they set off fireworks from it

in September during the wine festival.

Ahhh yes,

we still have all that to look forward to.

I stopped to take one last photo,

or two,

while Mike took all 4 hounds.

But they didn't get very far,

more fallen trees.

So we had to go back the way we came,

back to where we started.

Once back in the car

the sun was setting over the far side of the valley

and I couldn't resist

snapping away at it.

The photos turned out not too bad,

despite

a bumpy road.

Once back in the valley,

the blue skies and the sunset had disappeared

leaving a grey light,

and photos only fit for the delete button.

Fairy cakes for the hungry traveller

Mike returned from 10 days in sweden. I made some fairy cakes to welcome him home.

He had to leave behind him views like this;

This is a photo of the boathouse. It is a lovely place to swim from in the summer. No wonder Mike is missing Sweden right now.

My favourite place in the Uk is The Lake Districthttp://www.visitcumbria.co/kes/watend.htm and I've always wanted to live there. I used to live near Carlisle http://www.historic-carlisle.org.uk/historiccarlisle/main.asp?page=0 which isn't too far away. I used to enjoy fell walking http://wwwandyfellwalker.com/index.html and spent many a happy weekend tramping the fells.

I always wanted to live in The Lake District and I suppose to some degree I have accomplished that- just it's the Swedish Lake District, well we are surrounded by 5 lakes.