Wet as Wet Up Bowscale

It's a tad wet round these parts today. Not put off by a bit of watter I decide to get togged up and head up Mosedale for a blast with Breeze. We have an important appointment tomorrow which means leaving fairly early and not knowing what time we'll be back. Aunty Sarah will attend to Breeze's needs for us but it's nice to know she's tired on days like that!

Anyway, I set out with good intentions, only to be thwarted when I got to the Old Bridge at Mosedale - the road was flooded. So quick change of plan, I headed up the lonning at Bowscale instead.

Looking down into Mosedale - that's where I was headed!

The track was a river today

Leaving the tarn

Looking back - all that water isn't normally there

There is a road down there - that I had intended to drive along. If you look closely you can see a cyclist who is contemplating making the crossing - they didn't!

A classic case of getting out whatever the weather. A couple of hours of solitude - just me and the dog (it would have been even better if Husband had been with us but he had other things to do this afternoon).

Lingholm and Martindale with Mum

Mum has been up for a bit of R & R and we have had a couple of outings planned all week. For a few reasons neither have happened until today, but as luck would have it the weather has played ball and we have the perfect morning for a visit to Lingholm Kitchen

Lingholm was where Beatrix Potter spent her holidays and as such was the inspiration for many of her stories.

The Kitchen Garden was the inspiration for Mr McGregor's garden. It was rebuilt last year and is being beautifully maintained

After a coffee we walked down to the launch

Before walking back up to the kitchen garden and Cafe for a lovely lunch

Following a brief visit into Keswick to collect a few bits of shopping, we drove to Martindale to see the Red Deer again. This time the rut is getting underway and there was plenty of roaring 

A pair of Stags started having a fight while we were watching 

there were Deer all around - it just takes patience to get your eye in and spot them.

I didn't realise until I looked at this photo that there were two in this shot, a stag and a hind

Causey Gills

We can't help oursleves! Many walkers are summit baggers. religiously walking all the Wainwrights/Munros/Birketts or some other list which has been put together by someone at some time. That has never been our thing. We prefer to walk where the mood takes us. Often making it up as we go and nearly always chosing our routes to avoid other people as much as possible. As the years go by this last point gets harder and harder and if you want to guarantee that you will bump into someone else, I highly heading for a summit.

We seem to be turning into Gill Baggers. Or at least, we seem to be drawn to walks which involve walking up or down Gills. It doesn't matter to us if we have been before, there is always something new to see

We parked at Rigg Beck Quarry

And walked up Rigg |Beck

Bracken Crusher

Running Spaniel

Fliying Spaniel

Rigg Screes

It's very warm up here

Looking back

The distant views are very hazy today - but that is the western fells in the background as we gain height towards the col between Sail and Causey Pike

We saw no-one up Rigg Beck, but as we started to get on to more well trodden paths we could see a few folk around. We hadn't decided where we would go until this point, but as most people seemed to be heading up onto the tops, we decided not to! So after lunch at Long Comb

We followed the path down to by Stoneycroft Gill 

Before joining the (closed) road past Rowling End Farm, back to the car

Just 5.5 miles or so today as time is short. But once again a beautiful day in our beautiful landscape!

Martindale with Ed and Gerda

Our friends Ed and Gerda are over from Holland and we would like to take them to see the Red Deer rut in Martindale. We know we are a bit early, but this is our only opportunity before they go back.

As expected, the rut had not started yet, but a few hundred red deer grazing happily was still a magical sight