Strawberry notes from The Land of Potter

Mum says that she gets to choose activities on her birthday so she smiled her way through a whole Beatrix Potter pilgrimage thing. She says we can go to the Pool tomorrow.

They gave us books of The Tale of Samuel Whiskers at her house, but we had to give them back at the end. We had to find real things in the house that she painted for the book. We saw the dresser from that book and from The Tailor of Gloucester, which Mum says was BP's favourite of all the books. We also saw the fireplaces that she put in the books, and the landing, and the mouse hole, and the dolls house. Mum says it wasn't the real house, because that belonged to niece of the man who made the books, but we're not so sure because it had the ham and the cot.

Lucinda and Jane were supposed to be in the bedroom, because Mum's book said so, but we couldn't find them. She asked the gentleman about them and he said that he didn't know where the dolls had gone. Mum and the gentleman were very sad.

It was very hot again today. Mum says we can go to the Pool tomorrow.

To get to the other Beatrix Potter place we crossed the longest lake on a small ferry. That was fun. It isn't the biggest lake. Mum says we have that at home and that's right because Finn McCool took a big lump of earth to throw at Benandonner in Scotland and that made Lough Neagh.

The Beatrix Potter place is really cool, and sometimes we listened to Mum telling us all the stories, but there was an awesome touch table where you could move maps of the Lake District all over the place. Mum did a puzzle with some random person's child. You can walk through lots of the stories and Jo had his picture taken in Mrs Tiggy-Winkle's kitchen. Matt says he has bumped his head there all two times before. He didn't bump his head today.

Then we had snack, and bought Lego Hero guys with our holiday money in the toy shop and went back to the barn and went for pizza and Mum and Dad took us on this street thing round Keswick. Lots of people dressed up and told stories about Keswick. Beatrix Potter was there but Mum thought the lady doing her made her seem too silly.

Mum says we can go to the Pool tomorrow.

A Summer Reading of Beatrix Potter

I have decided to read the entire World of Peter Rabbit in one go. With obvious comfort breaks for food, sleep and family interaction. I think that reading all little twenty three tomes in order is definitely the route to the richest Beatrix Potter experience. For example, if you read The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle before The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, because you carelessly skipped from 3 to 5, then you will not know why Peter Rabbit's jacket has shrunk and might be tempted to blame this erroneously on the impeccable Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, nor will you know why old Mrs Rabbit's red cotton pocket-handkerchief smells of onions when in fact she deals only in knitting, herbs, rosemary tea and rabbit-tobacco "(which is what we call lavender.)"

However I am going to start my Potter Log with Little Tome 5, The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle. For reasons that were delightful indeed, today was more than the perfect time to be reading the washer woman's story.

Last night we climbed Brackenrigg, and a nasty old time of it we had. The ferns and bracken were above our heads, though luckily Prince Charming was lofty enough to see a way forward! No possible purpose could we find for the jungle, other than to provide nourishment for bugs more sustainable than our blood. Yet when Lucie arrives at Mrs Tiggy-Winkle's door she sees the "clothes-props cut from bracken stems". Maybe I'll venture back over the fence tomorrow when I will have done some laundry of my own!

This afternoon we leafed through the Mountain Rescue Team's annual report, and saw that one of their call-outs last February had been to the search for a missing child. All it stated was that there had been no injuries, so we chose to deduce that all had ended happily.  This was, however, what immediately sprang to mind when "Lucie scrambled up the hill as fast as her short legs would carry her". I wonder if contemporary readers shook their heads in disdain and asked where Lucie's parents had been, or maybe reminisced about the days when they took off into the hills for days at an end with only an apple in their pocket, aged eight.

The best bit for me was at the very end where Potter notes for potentially incredulous readers that she has "seen that door into the back of the hills called Cat Bells", as Catbells is just exactly where we spent lunchtime today, with an hour or so either side. It is a lovely hill to climb; Wainwright described it as "a place beloved", and it is. It must have some of Potter's magic for sure. We got out of the car to put on our boots, and driving into the space right next to us was one of our oldest friends.      Our adventure in the Land of Beatrix Potter continues x

Strawberries and Cream Giveaway

Last year in Cornwall we were absolutely, disappointingly incapable of finding the Platonic ideal of a cream tea! On our one rainy day, after a fun but dripping visit to a National trust tin mine, we embedded ourselves in the coffee shop of a panning-for-gold-themed-place for the rest of the afternoon. There were strawberries and cream and Monster Munch too.

I think the holidays competition was also absolutely incapable of being answered, so let's have a nice, easy giveaway to celebrate summer and holidays and no more marking! Leave a comment at the bottom of this post, and we strawberries will pick out a winner on the first day of our school holidays- Saturday 29th June.  All you brave, well-travelled and clever souls who had a go at our recent destinations have already been entered- but comment anyway!

I have a little box all packed up and ready to go with some cream and some strawberry items. It is happy to travel anywhere in the world! And just in case you wondered, the competition answers were:

2008: visiting Mrs Tiggy-Winkle at The World of Beatrix Potter in England's Lake District. Magical spot!

2009: Prince Charming baking under the Pont du Gard after a quick canoe down the same river. Fantastic interactive children's space all about Roman life.

2010: back in France, but in the deliberately cooler climes of Brittany. This was the town of Vannes, where the heads of Vannes et sa femme can still be seen jutting from their house.

2011: clambering over rocks below the James Joyce Tower in Sandycove, just outside Dublin. I think I've raved about it quite enough this month!

2012: Last year we had our first holiday in Cornwall, and spent a day awestruck in the Eden Project.

So, bonnes vacances to us all- and do leave a little word x

Competition Time

 2008, visiting Mrs Tiggy-Winkle in her natural habitat. (Waiting for knee surgery!)

 2009, baking in the sun, guarding the bridge.

2010, the region will suffice, though the town and his wife might be known to some.

2011, you may well recognise this from recent strawberry events.

2012, working hard in the garden where it all began!

In a comment leave your guesses as to the five strawberry holiday destinations since our blogtime started! There will be strawberries and cream for whoever comes closest- with a strawberry draw in the event of a tie. The winner will be announced on Saturday 29th June, the first day of our school holidays, and you can enter right up until then.  Bonnes vacances!

Crave indulgence

Sorry folks, not that sort of indulgence! I need yours for a day- I am taking a break from Christmas! Childlike will be here tomorrow (it's still Tuesday here) but just for today I need to know that normal life will resume after Sunday! SO!

Crochet. I'm on to what I am affectionately deeming Stage Two of The Ripple. Stage One was the sample, in Rico Baby Gruen- the main colour, I think.

Satge Two, tonight's project, was to chain the 199 needed after measuring Sunday night's sample. I was appalled at the thought of accurately keeping track of this, so marked every set of ten loops! Bemused arm belongs to long-suffering Jo who has ball of said Rico Baby stuffed down the front of his shirt to keep it out of the shot!

And finally, I have made a start on my Beatrix Potter reading- well, I read the first one. All I can say is that if a single parent of four children, living in a sparsely furnished cellar, can take herself off to the bakery for buns while her reprobate son runs up another bill of anti-social behaviour in a neighbour's garden, and still be sane enough to cook any sort of supper and provide medical ministrations- she's a better woman than me! (Me at BP's Lake District house in July 2008!)