A visit to Orrest Head

Hi friends!

I wanted to thank you again for all your kind get wells and congratuations, again! I’m so appreciative of each of you who stops in here and spends a bit of your day with me!

The weekend was Mr. N’s birthday, so I took him away up to Windermere for a mini 24 hour getaway.

I’ve never been to the Lake District, and Windermere’s accessible by train (key as I don’t drive here yet!) so on Friday night we made our way up!  Mr. N was surprised and really enjoyed the inn we stayed in and the dinner we had (yay!)

And on Saturday, we had a tootle around Windermere and Bowness (which, even on a mizzly day, was slammed with people!) then went for a short walk up to Orrest Head.  It’s a short walk, that you can make a bit longer if you want, which was perfect as I still had the remnants of a cold and wasn’t up for a long walk!

The walk starts right at the edge of Windermere — there’s a short, but steep ascent that’s pretty heavily wooded — so pretty.

We got a peak of some sheep and the views to come along the walk up:

And before we knew it, were to the top, where there are lovely views of both lake and the fells.

As you can see, it was a rather gloomy day, with on and off light rain, and lots of water around!

But we had a lovely time and lingered at the top, even as the temperature started to drop a bit quickly!

Since it was such a short walk up, we decided to do the longer walk back through some of the farm lands.

The sun peaked out as we went through a field of cows and sheep.  Look at the color of this beauty!

And of course there were also some sheep (!):

And I loved seeing the sheep and cows all dotting th fields ogether:

And plenty of non-livestock prettiness as well.  I got a little obsessed with some of the lichen:

 

 

Fencing that (I think) is to encourage a hedgerow:

And I even spotted some wild wool, ha!

And there was some knitting as well! I took along a gorgeous skein of West Yorkshire Spinners new Croft yarn from the lovely Kate at Northern Yarn, and cast on for the Ruschia Hat, this month’s A Year of Techniques project.  It turns out that trying to start a hat in a pub post-walk is a recipe for many mistakes, but after a few false starts, I’m off:

I’m enjoying the yarn and pattern immensely!  The yarn is woolly and gives a delightfully squishy fabric–I think it will make a lovely hat and would also be nice for larger garments!  And I’ve loved the speckled fabric the Croft produces.  And the pattern — my first Woolly Wormhead hat — is just SO clever.  The hat’s knit lengthwise in small wedges, and  it’s completely addictive!

It was a short trip, but a lovely one — and I’m looking forward to exploring more of the Lake District and getting a bit off the beaten path!

How was your weekend?

xo K