Derwent Water


Wednesday 24th July

Today the family Keating travelled to Keswick to meet with Jane who was staying a week near Skiddaw. We kidnapped her from the lovely Ormathwaite Hall where she was staying (which had a lovely view over Borrowdale) and headed into Keswick for the morning.

Borrowdale is such a strong Tolkien-esque name, you can almost imagine that the place is filled with Hobbits with little care except for the day to day life of agriculture, markets and local interest. This is not too far from the way people in Keswick live, they are also very friendly, again like Hobbits.

Jane only had a few hours grace as she needed to do dialysis in Cockermouth so it was decided we would take a tour of the lake on one of the launches. If you get the chance this is very worthwhile. There are a multitude of stops to get off and have a wander or, like us, you can do the circular tour.

The people at the Boathouse were exceptionally kind, Jane is registered blind having lost a good percentage of her sight she can now only determine outlines and shadows. On seeing her white stick they gave her a complimentary ticket, they could have just done a concession but knowing that a great part of the experience is visual they discounted 100%. Jane, however, thought that the sensory experience was worthwhile. As a trial Daddy closed his eyes and let his mind focus on his other senses.

“purposefully cutting off a sense is no real comparison to losing it completely. However, the experiment allowed me to focus on other senses that are normally deprived of the attention. Sounds seemed slightly amplified, and smells more vibrant, though these could have been auto-suggestive. What was most surprising was the sensations to touch. I could feel the spray, warmth of the sun and pressure of wind on my skin.”

There is a video of the event on Mark’s Youtube channel.

A quick cake and a pot of tea in the Lakeshore Tea Shop was the end to the morning and then we took Jane to her appointment.

2013-07-24 11.05.54 2013-07-24 11.01.37 2013-07-24 10.58.50 2013-07-24 10.48.49 2013-07-24 10.48.49 2013-07-24 10.48.45 2013-07-24 10.36.28 2013-07-24 10.35.14 2013-07-24 10.33.52 2013-07-24 10.32.35 2013-07-24 09.28.48 2013-07-24 09.27.24 2013-07-24 09.25.05 2013-07-24 09.24.40