Customers wanted

Seen outside a nice little shop in Chapel Stile, Cumbria.

At least someone has a sense of humour there.

Authentic fish and chips

Traditionally the English 'fish and chips' (** see etymological note at the end) consists of battered fish (usually cod or haddock), chips and 'mushy peas'.  The whole meal can be bought in a 'fish and chip shop' - where the fish and chips are deep fried.  Delicious, but possibly unhealthy - especially for the poor fish!

Until not very long ago the meal used to be wrapped in greaseproof paper, which was then wrapped in newspaper - a cheaply available and convenient thermal insulator.  This kept the meal hot for long enough to take it home.

Sadly the tradition has gone due to the modern preoccupation with hygiene and the wastefulness that goes with the comparative affluence of today's world.  Now we recycle the newspaper and use fresh new paper to wrap the meal.  What a waste! 

I never heard of anyone poisoned by a newspaper.  Not even by the Daily Mail!

Enjoying an evening meal at a local hostelry, the Wainwright Inn at Chapel Stile, the fish and chips arrived on a plate like this, complete with mushy peas and tartar sauce.

The meal was delicious.  I couldn't help smiling to myself and wondering what ridiculous hoops the chef had to jump through to prove that this copy of the Financial Times was not contravening the food hygiene regulations!

See a post from last March - The Peace of Cod


Small etymological note:  The English use of the word 'chips' is preferred here.   I'll translate for other English speakers around the world.  Chips = French Fries (at least broadly speaking, although these English fries tend to be a bit thicker than the French ones).

Another small note, almost unrelated:  On buying salmon in a shop, the customer asked whether it was wild.  The assistant replied "Wild?  It wasn't just wild - it was absolutely furious!"

The deepest lake in the Lake District

The deepest body of water in England is in the Lake District, over 220 feet at its deepest point (thanks to @Hilary for the correction of my units). 

A tranquil walk around the south west corner of this lake finds you on a difficult path along the bottom of some of the largest scree slopes in the country.  Although made up of quite large rocks, as you walk along it is not difficult to tread on something that moves.

The bigger rocks that move make a distinctive sound, which then echoes through the local scree in an eerie way.  But these slopes have been here for centuries and it is tempting to feel that the puny footsteps of people are not gong to disturb the rocks in any significant way.

But once in a while you step onto and area that moves under your feet, sliding down towards the water.  Meeting a young family who were just starting to walk along the scree in the opposite direction I stopped for a chat and took care to warn the children not to stand on the special 'key stone' - the one that will make the whole lot tumble down!  (Was that child abuse?)

From this vantage point on the screes, looking across the lake to a point 2 miles walk away, I could almost see the parked car containing two teenagers who 'bottled out' before getting to the exciting part of the walk!  They missed another of the finest landscapes in England - but to their credit, at least they did get to the top of Helvellyn earlier in the week.

As a puzzle to conclude my 'Week in the Lakes' would anyone like to hazard a guess at the name of the deepest lake in the Lake District?

I might return to a few more posts about the a week in The Lakes.  Whenever you spot one you will know that it has been a busy week!

Small note: @Derby Skeptic is banned from answering the puzzle for 3 days to give everyone else a chance to join in!

View from the top!

The 'top of England' is the peak of Scafell Pike (pronounced Score-fell by the way).  I had been up the mountain twice before, both times starting from Wasdale Head.  You climb from close to sea level to the peak at 978m in less than 3 miles.

This time I selected a different, slightly longer, route from the top of Borrowdale and the majority of the walk was very pleasant, with excellent views of the surrounding countryside.  As the top was getting closer it seemed that a great panorama would be visible, as it had been earlier in the week.

However, on arrival after the nasty scramble up loose rocks that 'welcomes' every visitor to the mountain peak, the clouds descended and an icy wind made it very uncomfortable and this is the view that greeted me!

Did I ever mention how much I like Helvellyn in comparison?  At least on the top of Helvellyn you don't get the option for international phone calls from your mobile phone! 

However, the walk down from Scafell was lightened by the company of two New Zealanders  who hadn't heard all my old stories!

Small note: Sore knees resulted from this walk due to the uneven nature of the terrain and general wear and tear I suppose.

Love of steam - S Y Gondola

I've always loved steam engines, ever since Thomas the Tank Engine first came into my life.  Usually these are in the form of railway locomotives or traction engines, but a recent appreciation for steam yachts was unexpectedly satisfied last week.

I thought it might have happened earlier in the week, when booking a ticket on a 'steamer' on Windermere, to travel half the length of the lake from Ambleside to Bowness.  Looking forward to a ride on a classic vessel, I was terribly disappointed to find that there was no steam in this 'steamer'.  Had I been on my own I would have gone back to the ticket office and made a strong case for a refund of my fare.  It is simply outrageous to sell tickets at that price on 'steamers' and justify it simply by the use of 'single quotes'.  The Trade Descriptions Act surely has something to say on the matter.

However, the week was rescued by an 'encounter' with the Steam Yacht Gondola on Coniston Water.  (My use of single quotes here is intentional and not at all disingenuous!)  The hull of this classic craft is indeed reminiscent of the shape of a Venetian gondola, and I was in two minds about whether to spend another £10 each to ride on her . . . at least until she arrived at the quayside.  Then it became inevitable!

If you have never seen a steam yacht in action you have missed one of life's little pleasures.  The quiet power is something quite different from what you would normally associate with a steam locomotive.  There is just a gentle chuffing sound from the chimney.  And you don't have to tolerate the sound of a throbbing diesel engine making the decks vibrate in complaint either.

This is a steam engine with a silencer in the exhaust system to enhance passenger comfort by eliminating the roar of the exhaust. 

How do I know that?  Well of course any engineer has to examine a steam engine when he sees one, even if he does have sympathy for the poor fellow who had obviously answered answered the same ones many times before.  (See the small note at the end if you want the technical details!)  But after that a lively technical conversation ensued about steam in general, steam launches in particular, and later branching out to some chat about similarities with nuclear fusion engineering!

The whole encounter with the Gondola and her crew was one that I will not forget.  I hardly noticed the beautiful scenery around the lake.

Living near the River Thames which is quite famous for its steam launches my mind wanders to the possibility of buying one.  (But sssshhhhh . . . don't tell anyone!)

Small notes:
My technical questions, the answers and some comments from me!
Q.  What is that wood-lagged box in the exhaust between the cylinders and the chimney?  
A.  Its a silencer.
Comment:  Neat!  Passenger comfort really is being taken seriously!
Q.  Is it unusual to use injectors instead of crosshead driven mechanical pumps to put water into the boiler?
A.  [Something along the lines of] Why would you use a crosshead pump?
Comment: I took that to mean that its not unusual.  The SY Gondola had two injectors by the way, and the boiler was manufactured by the Furness Railway Company and looked exactly like  locomotive boiler.
Q.  Isn't it unusual on a boat not to have a condenser in the exhaust?
A.  [Something along the lines of] why would you need a condenser when there is so much clean water all around us?
Comment: The purpose of the question was not really to investigate saving of water, but more along the lines of the two possible philosophies for steam engines.  One is to use a low pressure boiler and to get an extra pressure drop across the engine by condensing the steam - much as in the cooling towers of a power station.  The other - adopted on Gondola - is to use a high pressure boiler and to use the flow of exhaust steam to create a flow of air to draw the fire better.  Both approaches improve efficiency but in different ways.  


I didn't need to ask more about the components as I recognised them all, but familiarity does not always prevent appreciation of the finer points of the art of steam.

On mobile communications . . .

I might have mentioned earlier in the week that the mobile phone network was not very good in Cumbria, and how I found myself connected to the network of the Isle of Man at one point.  Considering the number of visitors to the region - which must number in the millions each year - I think the poor service is unforgivable, as indeed is the quality of many of the road surfaces.

But this technical problem brought a moment of humour.

While walking around Wast Water we met a lady who had been trying to get in touch with her husband who was walking in the nearby mountains.

Wasdale Screes

She acknowledged that was no phone signal, but she exclaimed that she was surprised that a text message would not send anyway!

It reminded me of the mobile phone story in the post last month 'Will we ever know?'

Look mummy! Baby Swans!

Taking the opportunity for a photo of the very domesticated 'wildlife' on the shore of Windermere, I was surprised to see quite a number of adult swans but none of the 'ugly ducklings' of our childhood stories.

Those of you who are not in the UK might not know the folk story about the ugly grey duckling who thinks nobody will love him.  He hides away from everyone, but when he emerges he finds that he has turned into a magnificent white swan and that everyone now admires him.  It turns out that he was not a duckling at all but a cygnet.

Where the Bowness cygnets are hiding is a mystery that I do not plan to dwell upon, but I was amused by the collection of birds that were around.  In between the beautiful white swans were some equally pretty white doves.  It reminded me of an event many years ago where I heard a small toddler point at a similar scene and call out

"Look mummy!  Baby swans!"

He obviously hadn't been listening to the story about the ugly duckling.

Finest view in England - from a Marilyn!

The view from the top of Helvellyn is surely one of the finest in England.  Not many people get to see it in person and that is part of the glory of it, but even if you could get there by magic it would still be a landscape that has few rivals.  I am glad to say that I was not disappointed by it, having worried that memory is fallible, and knowing that it is nearly 30 years since I last set eyes on it.

At 950 metres, Helvellyn is not the highest peak in the country (two others being a few metres higher), but there can be little doubt that the view from the top of Striding Edge is among the most spectacular scenes.

Striding Edge is more than a mile long.  It is one of those geographical features that used to be in every child's text books.  Perhaps it still is, but the kids that I have asked have not responded positively.  (Hardly a surprise there!)  That could be for a number of reasons, but putting on a curmudgeonly hat (for a change) I think it is because young people today seem generally less impressed by the natural wonders around them than they are by whatever nonsense their friends are putting on Facebook.  That's a tragedy isn't it?

The reason for its appearance in text books is that it is a feature produced by glaciation.  During the last ice age when Britain was overwhelmed, several glaciers started from the top of Helvellyn, pouring themselves down the mountain in a leisurely way.  The one between the two 'knife-edge ridges', Striding Edge and Swirral Edge produced a 'cwm' which is now partly filled by the pretty little Red Tarn.

Aside from the technical details, I was accompanied by two teenagers to the mountain and we traversed Striding Edge in a strong gale and then clambered up the even more frightening climb to the top of the mountain.  Of course they took it in their stride much more than I did.  I have never been afraid of heights, but I must admit that a slight feeling of vertigo was threatening me at several points on the windy climb up the mountain. 

I'm sure that Helvellyn is higher than it was 30 years ago! And steeper!  At least this time I did not have a snow-drift building up in my ear!  The temperature was perfect for walking/clambering, and the decision to wear shorts for the walk was not regretted at any point - or at least not by me!

The journey down from the peak would have been less exciting if it had not been for the wind.  I can't even begin to estimate the speed of the wind, but on the long wide slopes to the north of the peak of Helvellyn, the cross-wind threatened to blow me off my feet several times. 

I found myself very glad that I had bought a pair of light weight walking poles.  Not only had they helped to share the load between arms and legs on the way up and down, but they helped to counter the force of the wind.  (They also helped me to realise that certain muscles in my arms had not been used enough!  Ouch the following day!)

One item of reassurance was gleaned from the 11 mile walk, with 3,500 feet up and down.  Sorry about the archaic units, but they worked well in the version of  'Naismith's Rule' that I had been taught years ago.  (This is a rule which helps you to calculate the amount of time needed for a walk.)  I had expected that a correction factor much greater than unity would have to be applied for unfit men of my age, but nobody could be more surprised than me that the 5 hour 45 minute walk was completed a few minutes faster than the calculation would have predicted.

Looking at the Wikipedia entry about Naismith's Rule I find the answer less reassuring - but probably more realistic.

Finishing on a lighter note, did you know that Helvellyn is a 'Marilyn'?  This is a term for a peak that is 150 metres higher than its surroundings.  The name is a pun on the Scottish Munroes (Marilyn being homophonous with Munro).

How Many Lakes?

You might have noticed that during the last week there has been a little less interaction from me than usual.  Even though there has been a new post every day, scheduled in advance, I wasn't able to respond to the comments that people have left.  The reason for this is that I have been away visiting the English Lake District, in Cumbria, for a week. 

Let's just say for now that communications are not as easy in that area as they are in the rest of the country!  See the small skeptical note at the end.

For the next few days most of my posts will be based on this holiday - but rest assured, they will not be a straight-forward account of a holiday.  Skepticism, humour (and possibly a little atheism) will creep in somehow!

The amount of rain in these mountains - the highest mountains in England - brings a certain elegance and beauty that has inspired the poets throughout the ages. You  hardly go anywhere without seeing the names of Tennyson, Wordsworth, Shelley or Ruskin, or the more ubiquitous modern writers such as Beatrix Potter or Arthur Ransome. 

Even if there is temporarily no water in the air, you can be fairly sure that there soon will be.  As it turned out we were very fortunate that we only had one rainy day but the overnight precipitation was enough to keep the waterfalls running beautifully.

Travelling through the valleys enjoying the scenery I was reminded of the age old question. 

How many lakes are there in the Lake District? 

Walking in the mountains and valleys you find bodies of water with poetic and evocative names: Crummock Water; Grassmere, Buttermere, Blea Tarn.  But among these meres, waters and tarns you find no lakes.  Or do you?

Yes - there is one!  Bassenthwaite Lake is the only actual lake in the Lake District.  Actually I would almost argue it is not even the most beautiful lake, even if you accept that it is the only one!

Small note:  I'm not saying that mobile communications in Cumbria are not up to the standard that I would have hoped to find, but one day I was surprised to get three text messages, welcoming me to the Isle of Man!  That means that the phone signal from an island 40km (25 miles) away was stronger than the local signal and I had the opportunity to make an international call.  In our house in Langdale I could send and receive text messages only by holding the phone at arm's length out of the upstairs window!  The very concept of mobile broadband represented the triumph of hope over experience!