Cark and Cartmel — A short trip with a view and lunch thrown in! With February sunshine — what a treat!
One of the pleasures of living in South Lakeland is the possibility of taking advantage of a sudden spell of sunshine in the middle of winter.
Yesterday we had a trip to Cark in Cartmel. Not far but fantastic scenery.
We drove to Cark for a light lunch at a very inexpensive café at the rear end of the Lakeland Nurseries. There is also a coffee shop at the front end. Both serve delicious homemade cakes but only the rear café serves hot food. Nothing expensive but excellent fare.
This café is a writer’s dream! Sights, sounds and smells are richly in evidence. I look around and observe the people who gather there and those delightful ladies who serve. Hear the chatter — no restrained whispers — of the patrons as they greet friends and neighbours, or chat amongst themselves. Smell the aromas emanating from the kitchen: mouth-watering hot dishes being prepared, or scones and cakes cooking in the oven. Yes, indeed, dare to linger the eye on the confessionary hygienically kept under glass, and feel your resolution to lose weight gradually wane — well, you can start again tomorrow.
Most of the customers are elderly men and women, indeed, a child present gets a lot of fuss — like babies at baptisms hovered over by jolly grans and tweeting aunts. Seats are saved at tables, reserved with walking sticks maybe. If we’re lucky a cycling club will be meeting for lunch, each muscled athlete dressed in colourful top and clinging black Licra tights, and, before removing helmets, looking like exotic flying insects with their wings removed. They may be on the older side but youth oozes out of them. (Watch it, girl!)
The cafe sells cards, craft items, jig saws and a few books too — my Still Waters Run Deep and Blazing Embers can be seen on the shelves. (Hopefully not for long!)
Having satiated one’s hunger, there is the delightful walk out among the rows of potted plants — nature’s jewels for house and garden. Tools and garden needs, trees and shrubs too — so much to see.
Why not stand at the door and feast the eye on the lovely countryside, before getting in the car and driving to Cartmel with its wonderful ancient Priory. On towards the fell road home, we usually stop to observe the mountain views and take photos. Then home to relax with hubby reading a story.
Such simple things to gladden the heart.
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9 comments:
'If we're lucky a cycling club will be meeting for lunch, each muscled athlete dressed in colourful top and clinging black Lycra tights…': Gladys, don't be found at that café without your husband!
Little wonder you can write such realistic and delicious romantic fact… er, fiction.
You can turn up in tights any day, Payton. Let me know and I'll meet you there. (Hubby will have to stay at home.) Maybe I'll get some ideas for a new novel? Kinky Koala's Knobbly Knees in Lycra Costume Keep Knocking in Cark Cafe, (as sweet demure English lady offers him a cup of hot chocolate, and a chocolate cup cake decorated with jelly beans.)
Gladys: More likely would your inspiration for the novel's title be along the lines of: 'Aussie lycra-less bull koala's innocence stripped by Queen of Romantic Fiction (hark at the lark in the dark at Cark Café, if you're game!)
Oo, I'm game. Come shooting with your blunderbuss any day of the week. What a yarn we could spin, eh? Or would it be just a dead duck?
Gladys: 'blunderbuss' - your knowledge of the genital organ of the male koala bear astounds me. Had you stipulated that the blunderbuss be double-barrelled, you would have had me barrelled, for it in fact is bifurcated (I did say "birfurcated"); why?: search me.
Actually, I think we could spin a yarn of arresting proportions. And it wouldn't be just a lame duck, thinks me. The joining of your refined worldly experience with my titillatingly consummate innocence would be irresistible to the limitless potential readership hungry for escape, arousal, and ideas.
Phew, what a line - sorry, storyline.
Well, Payton, gird up your loins and make a play for fair lady — written in English please.
Or jot a note or two
and we'll see what we can do.
Embrace your pencil tight
and give it all your might.
A love scene if you can
but keep it clean, young man.
Let all be pure and dreamy
not boiling hot and steamy!
(I'm only a shy old wrinkly, you know.)
Gladys: One could be forgiven for detecting a hint of literary seriousness…
Of course, I'm serious — I'm laughing all over my keyboard.
No challenge eh?
Better stick in Fools Paradise — up a gum tree, of course.
We know what happens to your ears and eyes
when you my books in Fools Paradise.
(That is http://phoolsparadise.blogspot.com )
I only wish that we could collaborate on a novel, and sooner than later, but alas, with my life in its current mess, not the least part of this being ten thousand loose ends, such an enjoyable project in prospect seems but a remote possibility.
This doesn't mean that we won't, but some time would have to fall out of the sky or bubble up from the depths. Jolly nuisance of fateful proportions actually…
So 'Exquisite passion teasingly wrapped in a Union Jack spent upon innocent virility in the great Outback' or some similar title might be some time off yet.
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