Coniston - 28/7/09

Well, the cold has arrived at least. And the rain's back, varying from drizzle to torrent all day. Throw in a tendency of everyone to lose everything and you've got something called 'not exactly a perfect day.' Started with yet another trip to Coniston, this time with some plan to go on the steam launch. But a storm was a-brewing, allegedly, so we had to settle on yet another walk around the village. Said storm never arrived but a lot more downpours did, so it was basically a morning of diving into shops to keep dry. Had packups in the cars, then drove around Coniston Water to the home of the man who looms over the parts almost as tall as Beatrix Potter: John Ruskin. He was buried in Coniston itself, and intended his house on the lake to be one of those Arcadias for thought and enquiry. Apparently it worked so well that late in his life he had to move out of his main bedroom because it kept giving him too many inspirations and doing his head in. I don't know much about Ruskin but apparently he was one of those Renaissance men who dabbled in everything. This included designing some wallpaper and a zither for his house. And very nice they were too. It was an interesting house, the design done more for originality than showing off piles of riches. But it did have an over-reliance on thumping great views of Coniston Water; good in the first room, less so by the seventh or eighth. We went around the grounds afterwards, which proved to be a great maze of zig-zagging paths up and down the hillside. The kids had fun scooting along them doing some nature quiz, the rest of us enjoyed some very weird plants and the rare phenomenon of not getting rained on. Had tea at a converted stable after a 14 hour wait, drove part of the way home, drove back again when dad thought he'd left his Visa card behind (it later turned up in an unexplored part of his wallet), finally managed to drive home. Not a bad day but, as I said, not exactly perfect; and at dinner we indulged in a spot of “At Broad Howe” (the perfect house in Patterdale we'd been for the last three years) “things are better.”