Wed August 28th On to Keswick

 Denise chronicles our trip while I tell stories.  Since I remain sober, it will all be true. 

Today is more and no less a travel day. I figure that on a river boat cruise there are travel days, then this equates well with such a day. This is very good  since today it rained every where we traveled. 

A few days back we were blessed to observe train delays and how locals dealt with such inconveniences. Then, it did not affect us however today it did. We began the day with plans to travel from York to Keswick (pronounced kes-uck, go figure only the Brits) by train York-Newcastle upon Tyne-Carlisle-Penrith which if you counted is 3 trains and 2 transfers. Bad start, the first train was canceled 20 minutes after departure. Therefore we never got on, in fact it never arrived. We learned the earlier day that the train system simply rolls your ticket to the next available train. One hour later we are on our way to Newcastle. You get the idea,  we roll along from one later train to another later train arriving in Penrith an hour late. The final leg to our destination is a bus ride from Penrith to Keswick. The forgotten beatitude of "blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape" became our mantra. Our Carlisle to Penrith provided a one hour layover giving time to feed the spirit, much necessary to sustain our patience and long suffering even if it was for just a day. 

Downtown Keswick

Castle in Penrith across from train station.  Found out later that King Henry III lived here for awhile

Not too bad of a day. We saw part of Hadrian's wall, lots of striking countryside and I didn't have to drive. Rolling hills, sheep, rocks walls, sheep, streams, sheep and sometimes a cow. Shocking. We also learned when you go to occupy open seats on the train avoid those with youngsters playing video games on a tablet who have no ear buds or headphones and must hear all the game for full sensory stimulation. We moved seats at the next stop. 

Second observation is locals and visitors "in the know" to The Lake Region wear either shorts or rain pants and always a rain jacket. It is just simply wet. I did get a rare picture of the Ben (mountain) next to town with sunshine. 

After dinner at a local pub it was our long awaited play at Theatre at the Lake. We saw Hounds of Baskerville. It was hilariously done in typical British comedy fashion.

Written by Dennis this time