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Created: 17/07/2026; changed: 30/08/2026 – 31/08/2026
HF holiday, 21-28 August 2026. Self-guided holiday, but if there is space for me, I intend to buy lead easy walks with the group some days. This turned out to not be possible.
I booked late when my diary was clear of doctors and dentists and picked a holiday from a range of offered, plus I am a basic shareholding member, so I receive a discount.
Other holidays running were site seeing and scenic walking.
The view to Lake Coniston is beautiful.
Friday - travelled by trains and buses to the holiday some train delays but not much bother. The house is a Grade-ii listed building and grounds are National Trust owned purchased by Beatrice potter then sold half to the NT and bequeathed rest to the NT. HF holidays have been using the house since 1945. Unusually a mistake with food I eat some pork, this scared me as it has always given me a dreadful headache, but that did not happen and HF were very apologetic about it.
Saturday - short bus ride to Amberside, visited the town and the Armitt Museum of Beatrice Potter, and currently has an exhibition of photographs of people. Then I walked and looked at Lake Windermere from near Amberside Pier, which is as much as my ankle was up to today. I was also going to visit Coniston Lake and Ruskin Museum where the Bluebird water speed record boat may be on view but perhaps another day?
The bar, which HF started putting in their houses in the early 1990s, they had already added locks to doors in the late 1980s and removing the dormitory accommodation and a room set aside as a chapel. Painting above is signed by a sibbling of Beatrice Potter.
Prints of pictures, but this one looks like an original watercolour. The house in the 17th century. The main rooms are lovely. The garden is full of very tall exotic trees.
Sunday - walk not by road to Coniston village, then a bus back using one of HF's self-guided walks one way. Visited Bluebird Café next to the lake and the Ruskin Museum, where the record speedboat that crashed is on display, and some history of copper mining, among other things, including John Ruskin.
Monday - Windermere jetty and a boat ride on a 1930s steamboat. It had been a 6-cylinder Morris petrol car engine but now is a modern diesel engine.
I also stopped at the model boat club and chatted to an old guy with a radio-controlled yacht. It's amazing how he was able to go in any direction with a slight breeze. He told me about ships with vertical mast turbines to reduce the energy consumption by 5% and recall seeing a prototype on TV but never hearing of them being made. The first seaplanes flew from Lake Windermere in about 1911.
Some of the HF guests leave, and others arrive today from the UK, USA, Canada and Germany.
Fulton's café (established 9 years ago), Keswick, used to be the Peddler Cafe. Vegan scone, jam, cream and spread. This is still shared with another shop.
Sorbet and Derwent Water. I don't think the railing was here when I visited previously.
Tuesday - took the bus to Amberside, then the next bus going to where I was keen to visit it was Keswick. Scone and later a sorbet comment given was that veganism had not spread to the Lake District yet. But I observe that Keswick has more vegan options than other towns in the Lake District.
Thinking about the Cumbrian pencil and the museum of caving, both were very good when I came before. Pencils were not painted during WWII except the aircraft crew's pencils with the map and the compass concealed within them on display were painted.
In the event we were given an interesting talk on the Norwegians or Vikings in Cumbria, no archaeology because they built in wood, had the best iron and better sailing ships than even 19th-century British ships because they had a keel, and left evidence in place names, DNA and dialect. Talk given by an armature historian who had started out by collecting folk law. Julian Blatchley.
One of the HF vegan deserts. Sometimes vegan cheesecake or a similar dessert, but there is always a fruit salad option.
Waterside Brasserie, Kendal, had many vegan options, including this lovely fruit scone.
Wednesday - bus to Amberside, then a bus to Kendal. The first impression was not really suited for a tourist, but Waterside Brassiere had a number of vegan options, and the vegan scone was very nice.
It turned out that the walk to the castle and the view were good, but some places to visit were not open. The journey back was tedious; the road to Coniston had been blocked by roadworks, so the bus came but then did not go all the way, but the next bus did go all the way.
Thursday - the bus to Hawkeshead: I took one of the HF self-guided walks to Letter Barrow, for a total of 3 miles, though my total was over 6 with 12 flights of climbing. My phone tells me I turned back before I quite got there. Got back long before the rain and visited the school museum.
Lady Jane Grey was queen briefly, then the Catholic royalty continued. Through founding schools, the Protestant slowly gained influence. This was the first. School in England, established in about 1570, was rebuilt in stone, has one classroom and is the longest-established library in England. Wordsworth had been a pupil and had carved his name on one of the desks. All years were taught in the one classroom, with 9- to 17-year-olds.
The bus route is driven carefully by the drivers who need to stop for traffic continually. They drive as if the bus is an extension to their body, and although the journey is often late, consequently the bus comes through without a scratch.
Ridgeway field, Southborough the day before the first rain in months. 19th August.
Ridgeway field, Southborough a few days after I had come home it had rained a little for 10 days. 31th August.
Pictures of Veltheimia plants that have been dormant since spring, but it rained two days before my holiday, which triggered their growth. They will be brought in before any frost, and they will flower at Christmas. A few days earlier the mowed areas of grass had been brown for months compared to the lakes, where fields had returned to green.
Friday - I got seats on buses and trains for my trip home, though there was an hour delay, so I was lucky. The last part London to High Brooms; the later commuter trains are usually very crowded, which they were.
Conversation more often with Americans, who universally did not like President Donald Trump and did not go along with my observation that he was anti-the establishment, but whether he liked the establishment or not and both points of view. Previous HF holidays – some Americans don't want to talk about theirs or our governments. I tended to find I'm hearing TV present debate.
But one member of HF had his own views, and we discussed Bread and Circuses. Like most people I know, I know what it means; it is an old Roman expression describing control of the masses. But I had not discussed and thought about the phrase; it was very insightful. Bread and Circuses were given free, but those gifts in turn drain and distract the people of their energy, wheat and grains, and nowadays potatoes are bad foods. I can see his point that meat (not pork) is good food, though it makes me unwell, but in the lake district lamb and cattle are free-range mostly and would be quite different to what used to make me unwell.
He understood why old bikes are more comfortable and have a lot of power because they don't use shock absorbers to take power. Lenton-sports-bicycle
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