4 Sep. - Keswick

 

Image: Ben Nevis with her head in the clouds

Walk - Train - Walk - Train - Bus - Walk.

Nevis less shy but still crowned with cloud as we retrace to Spean Bridge - home of Cameron - then head south.
Bridge of Orchy, Loch Lomond, Helensburgh, Glasgow.
High, bleak moorland - crags + falls, lochs + fells.
S spots two wild stag, huge antlered.

Glasgow a metropolis, busy + impersonal.
Slog the blocks from Queen to Central - busy but ordered - double stacked platforms.
Then Lockerbie, Gretna Green, into England + Penrith, before fast coach to Keswick.

End terrace - three floors - stone built + river backed. The water's rush quieted by double glaze.
Radiators, steep stairs with doors, a giant map 'Lake District' + the soft, regular tick of a wall-mount pendulum clock.

Dinner at the Royal Oak then, travel weary, to bed.

Notes: It was with sadness we left Scotland, but the Lake District is superb compensation. Some weeks later we wished we'd logged every Royal Oak we encountered ... Prince Charles must have hidden in a LOT of oak trees in the 1600s!