Monday, August 28, 2006

Lake District


We spent the weekend at my in-laws in Carlisle, which is in the north of England near to the Lake District, one of the most beautiful areas of Britain. It is about 4 hours drive from where we live, DH's sister and her family were there also. I have to confess that this is an old photo, we didn't go into the Lake District itself this time. Although we did hop over the border to Scotland to do some shopping at an outlet village in Gretna and we visited the Roman excavation site at Vindolanda in Northumbria which was fascinating. There was a Roman fort there as part of the fortifications on Hadrian's Wall, which was northern limit of the Roman Empire. They have found an amazing number of Roman artefacts there including the earliest known document handwritten by a woman (actually an invitation to a Roman birthday party). An archaeologist on the site said that because of the sheer size of the site it will take them 200 years just to excavate it fully. They can only excavate in the summer months as the place is very bleak and inhospitable in the winter and the weather would be too cold and the winds too fierce to dig.

No more travels on the immediate horizon, so I'm looking forward to concentrating on some sewing and catching up on all your blogs.

7 comments:

Libby said...

What beautiful countryside. I would want visit the in-laws very often *s*

Linda C said...

Lovely and green--so much history in your country.

Tazzie said...

Sounds just wonderful, and so historic! Every time I hear the words 'lake district' I always think 'Pride and Prejudice' for some reason? I'm going to have to watch it again and remind myself.
*hugs*
Tazzie
:-)

Lois R. said...

Wow is that beautiful. I'm sad to say I never got to the Lake District when my sweetie lived in England.

Unknown said...

With parents who lived in West Cumbria until recently and a very close friend who lived in Dumfries and Galloway for a good while I also know the area quite well - glad you got up there for a break - no short journey from Leicester but at least the traffic does tend to thin once you get above Manchester - as for the inhospitable weather for archeology in winter I think there'll be some summer days that they'd need their thermals on too :o)

Eileen said...

I used to read a lot of historical romance novels, and I seem to remember that couples used to go to Gretna to elope.
My visual of the Lake district is of rolling green hills, sunshine reflecting off the dewy grass. How far off am I?
Hope the holiday was all you wished for.

Anonymous said...

Just being pedantic, but Vindolanda is in the county of Northumberland. Northumbria is the more nebulous concept of the North East in general.