This first day turned out to be a bit longer than we had thought, and we seemed a bit slower in covering territory. (After the first three and a half hours we had only covered three and a half miles; what were we doing?) So...about nine hours of walking took us from the fields surrounding Ulverston well into the Lake District and the shores of Coniston Water. We did quite a bit of up and down, and we were all getting a bit tired. We knew that once we made it to the shore of the lake there was the option to catch one of the lake launches and ride the last couple of miles. We also knew what time the last launch was available to us! We missed it by five minutes. But, the walk along the forested shore of the lake was actually quite lovely, and I would have been sorry to miss it. (The small lake pictured here is Beacon Tarn, not Coniston Water, and the distant shimmer of water in the previous photo is Morecambe Bay, near Ulverston.)It was on this segment of the walk that our motto became "Keep Calm and Carry On." Apparently this motto was developed during World War II as a potential campaign should Britain be invaded. It did not have to be used, and has been recently discovered and exploited for commercial gain. We had heard that there are t-shirts, aprons, journals - whatever - and we began our search for something with this message on it. It was not until almost the last day of the trip that our walking friends located a plaque with the slogan and gave it to us as a gift. Right after that, I found a 2011 pocket calendar with the motto on the cover (along with the British flag); it will be my guide next year! We have since found no shortage of goods sporting the message at http://www.keepcalmandcarryon.com/.
No comments:
Post a Comment