Livy's Adventures

Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddleduck and squirrels and piglets and foxes and badgers and little bad mice! Windemere features an incredible lake that stretches out seemingly endlessly towards the sky lined with lush green hills. Beatrix Potter bought a small property in the Lake District with the funds from her story of Peter Rabbit, self-published because no one cared about books by women about furry animals. She was a self-confessed country-woman with country ways who loved her animals and her farm-life. She graded sheep at local fairs and wrote and illustrated her books surrounded by this vast, beautiful, violent landscape that had inspired so many literists before her. Peter Rabbit inspired affection amongst children all over the planet, as far away as Australia! The stories were enchanted with the kind of magic that children are so ready to believe and trust. It also taught a respect for animals, their loyalty and companionship, and an understanding of their distinctive ways that is amongst vital characteristics that children must be taught in order to prevent a lack of respect that leads to mistreatment. We should be able to look into the eyes of our animals, rabbits or dogs or cats or birds or whatever, and recognize the necessary actions that we must undertake as part of our responsibility to maintain their humble contentment. That’s why she’s important and I think that’s her legacy to me, as an adult, that helps me to keep believing in her stories. I like believing. Why grow up and loose that? I can’t think of a reason. Anyway so the town of Windemere was quite cute and the lake was incredibly majestic. Lovely little marina for boats and lots of duck, white swans and odd looking sea gulls (odd to us). There were, like, a billion ice-cream shops! Many promising 36 flavours (we tried to guess before we went in but couldn’t get to 36). We kind of felt that people weren’t fully accepting of outsiders, which was odd for a town with so many ice-cream and tourist shops suggesting that they get lots of tourists. Maybe we just spoke to the wrong people! The two-hundred year-old house we are staying in is gloriously bizarre. Set amongst beautiful, vast farmland inhabited by friesians – the lush, bright green pastures seem ideal for maintaining their pink and bloated, swaying udders - and lithe, grey squirrels and pheasants. The gardens are kept only to the point of necessity, which seems to reflect the philosophy to which the whole place is maintained. Neglected pockets of the garden reveal crumbling grey-stone stairways to ruined stone garden houses covered in vines and arched pathways leading to thickly overgrown forest. I let my mind run wild as the building standing proudly amongst the un-kept gardens ressembles the Longbourne used in the BBC version of Pride & Prej. – it was built in 1810. The foyer features an enourmous marble stair-case crowned in white Roman-esque pillars. Our room is vast with full length windows admitting long beams that fill it with light and presenting clear views of the pituresque pasture-land beyond in which the friesians graze as they were vast paintings of a perfect English country-side. On one side thin, new-green arms of ivy reach up in conquest towards the window’s upper regions casting leafy shadows on the faded floral carpet. The wallpaper is in mismatched floral patterns and the furniture in the room is a motley mixture of styles and eras as if collected over the expanse of the house’s two centuries right up to the current day. I am convinced that they are family heir-looms and that the house has been in the owners’ family for a long time. We are keen to learn the history of the house but the landlord will only stop long enough to tell us the date it was built and is gone before we can frame the words of a response. Though friendly and very accommodating the rest of the family, the son is the chef and the wife also acts as manager, give our enquiries and thoughts and compliments much the same response. We satisfy ourselves that they are extremely busy running such an old house as a hotel and have a quiet, friendly giggle at the bizarre combination of pieces that are majestic in their age and quality, such as a dark-wood book cabinet exquisitely carved with lions’ heads that borders an entire half of the dining room holding books dating as far back as 1901, and an odd array of cheap fake-china teapots that take their place on a mantle on the opposite side of the room. The furniture is worn and lived-in, but the whole place has a comforting atmosphere to it that is enhanced by its oddness. The facilities are all exceptional, like the bathroom – though carpeted (!!!) – has a lovely modern bath bordered with stylish wall tiles and a massive matching shower. The heating is surprisingly good for such a vast room – we had commented on how hard it must be to heat such a massive, old house – and the towel rack in the bathroom is heated too which is a nice touch! We had lunch in the dining room downstairs – with the book cabinet and teapots – and it was really nice so absolutely no complaints. I love staying in a place like this, it stirs my imagination!