Reliving Childhood Memories Of Coniston

I like to go back to Coniston every few years to keep my childhood memories of the place alive and to update the quality of my photo’s.  I didn’t expect to be going there today though as I was feeling very rough yesterday, but today when I woke up all hints of the exhaustion I felt had dissipated.  It was a wonderful day, made extra special because Tessa joined me in Caffe Nero and on drive to Preston college and back.  Coniston really is a magical place and I’m really looking forward to spending a day at ‘Taddy Tarn’ in summer, reading, sketching and swimming.

I woke at about 7am and as I was leaving Tess was also readying herself for the long trip on the bus to college, so we joined up and went to Caffe Nero instead and I dropped her off on my way up north.  I arrived at Brown Howe cark park in full sunshine and enjoyed good sun for most of my walk through the wild camping area that we frequented as a family in my teens.  All the camping spots were still there, but are un-used now as the area is monitored by national park wardens.  I tried to remember the route to our favourite tarn by memory, but got a little lost, so I was glad for the map on the iPhone but even so I still had to make a lot of detours to find crossing points as the streams were very high and fast running.  I reached Taddy Tarn, as we called it, in good time and had a little paddle for old times sake and to ease my ankles and then towelled dry and headed back.

I had some time to kill so I drove a couple of miles north to join the west shore path and hiked up it for 45 minutes and then back and it was a wonderful new experience.  I think walking all the way into Coniston village will be a trip for next year.  the 90 minute delay meant I was in perfect time to pick Tessa up after college and it’s a good job I did as she had a bit of a migraine.  I have meds in the car, which helped a little and so we stopped off to do some shopping on the way home.  Aside from a load of washing and the washing up I didn’t get to do any housework at all today, so from that perspective only I’ve been lazy, otherwise it’s been a glorious challenging day!

Not knowing what time I’d be back I’d arranged for Debbie and the kids to have Fish and Chips, take out, tonight and I’ve just had vegetables and chicken that I cooked earlier in the week.