The title refers to the pet name for our local newspaper, the Westmorland Gazette. It's based in Kendal and has just reached a rather impressive milestone - it's 200 years old this year! The paper was first set up in 1818 by William Wordsworth and a crony, to counter what they saw as the Whig [...]
Sunday was supposed to be the best day of the weekend, so we got the shopping out of the way on Saturday - and then woke to find everything hidden in a thick blanket of fog. Undeterred, we packed up boots and waterproofs and headed for Coniston, hoping that it would clear. Of course, it [...]
Just dashing in to say there's a wonderful collection of ghost stories, myths and legends with a historical edge (and quite a lot of screaming) over at historical novelist Annie Whitehead's blog today. Do pop over and take a look - these are 'real' stories, not fiction, and very entertaining!
A rather hasty exploration this time, for two reasons. One, there isn't really all that much of Hawkshead to explore (it's a small village) and two, it was absolutely freezing! However, the sun was shining and it was nice to get some fresh (okay, very fresh) air and a brief stagger round. Hawkshead is a [...]
We had a rare (genuinely rare) treat at the weekend - a trip to Abbot Hall art gallery in Kendal to see a painting by Claude Monet. The gallery is a lovely place to visit anyway, with a regular exhibition of local artist George Romney's works, links to local notables such as Lady Anne Clifford, [...]
We used to call in at Glenridding quite often, usually to go walking. There are some great paths on the lower fells between the village and the slopes of Helvellyn which dominate it, and some pretty amazing industrial archaeology left over from the area's lead mining heritage. But for the last couple of years we [...]
There's no such place as Greystones Hall, of course. The house, a rambling and terrifically haunted manor which features in my latest book Got Ghosts?, is a product of my own fevered imagination. The library, the chapel, the minstrels' gallery, the attics, even the cellar, are purely fictional. And yet... are they? Mostly the answer [...]
