Just Reminiscing

J had me stumped for a while. The only place in the South Lakes beginning with J that I could think of was Jack’s Rake, a steep gully climb traversing Pavey Ark in Langdale. However, as I’ve never done this climb, it would be cheating to pretend I had!

Instead, I decided I’d ‘just reminisce’ about some of my memories of our caravan years that don’t fit into any of my other A-Z categories.

Our caravan stood with 4 others in a field belonging to a farm just outside Hawkshead village. From the road, you couldn’t see it at all, as the ground rose in a small incline from the gate , and the caravan was in a dip at the far end of the field. The small incline caused huge problems at times. If the weather was (or had been) wet, then the ground was muddy, of course. The trick was to turn in through the gate (a sharp turn from the road) then put your foot down to reach the top of the incline without getting stuck. Sometimes I managed it, and breathed a sigh of relief, but it didn’t always work. Several times, the car wheels spun relentlessly, churning up and flinging mud in all directions. Then it was a case of having to ask the farmer to drag us out of the mud with his tractor!

A few feet from the back of the caravan, there was a steep drop down to a small steam (known as a ‘beck’ in Lakeland). My daughters used to spend hours playing among the stones in the beck, paddling and trying to build dams (unsuccessfully) – what is it about kids and water? When the water was low, it provided a gently soothing sound at night when we were sleeping; when it was high, it sounded more like an old steam train going right past the caravan window.

The same view of the beck, this time in full flood

The caravan was under some old beech trees. The sap from these necessitated frequent cleaning of the sides and top of the van. When it rained (as it does frequently in the Lake District), we didn’t get the gentle pitter-patter of the rain on the roof of the van. Instead, the leaves dripped water on to it, in a very uneven pattern – ‘plop… plip, plop, plip …plop, plop..’ etc. Definitely not conducive to falling asleep easily!

Just a short walk (or an even shorter drive) up the lane from our field brought us to the start of a pathway leading up to a small fell (only 800ft) called Latterbarrow. At the top is a very large obelisque, but its main claim to fame is the wonderful view of Windermere. I’ve lost count of the number of times we went to the top – once was with a group of about 12 Girl Guides, another was at about ten o’clock on a beautiful June evening, when it was still partly light and we watched all the lights come on in the houses and hotels around the lake. Magic!




I could go on with many other memories - the late night cooking sessions, the frogs we bought on each visit (pottery ones!), the card and board games we played (Sorry, Uno and Newmarket were our favourites), the domino games with the 'locals' at the Queen's Head pub in the village, squelching through mud and basking in sunshine, and the clear night skies with millions of stars (and sometimes we could even see the Milky Way),

But enough for now. I’m smiling as I remember all the fun we had up there, in all seasons and all weather. Happy days!