Orang Borealis

Just back from a wonderful week in The Lakes pandering to an obsession of half the family with Swallows and Amazons. This picture is of the real Amazon at the Ruskin Museum in Coniston which unlike most interactive, text-speak-based museums these days surrenders not-a-jot to dumbing down. It is not visible in this picture but daughter found a discarded red cap which made her very excited. Promises to knit one for her have been extracted along with further pledge to attempt an Amazon flag. You may be able to spot a further Lake District hero in the background. I was going to tone the TV screen down until I zoomed in and saw what it was displaying. Single piece of delicious vanilla fudge to any correct answers on a postcard (colleagues permitting). Future hobbies for daughter are now a choice between Ballroom Dancing and sailing lessons. It has been mentioned that there are more gold medals to be had in sailing than for Ballroom dancing but there is always the Brucie Bonus of meeting the aged shoe-shuffling charmer himself I suppose. I am afraid my last experience of proper hands-on sailing was in the week Elvis died so I would be no help in "going about" (whatever that means) though I suppose I might be able to barbecue a Billy Goat or two.

Daughter managed to fall in with other S&A obsessives on the cruise we did on Coniston Water and they all went almost speechless when they saw The Jolly Roger flying on an otherwise very un-piratical yacht. Personally I was trying to work out where the 70 years between then and now had managed to hide themselves. I think we were both disappointed not to get closer to the real Wildcat Island. Friends of ours with both a proper berth-possessing yacht and a smaller dinghy have suggested we meet up to actually land in the secret harbour as the crowds of nautical youngsters were doing as we passed.

I was going to try and not mention the weather but as one of the staff at Coniston Tourist Information Centre said he was getting a bit cynical about the weather forecast I suppose I can say that it did rain a bit. Actually it rained a lot - even when the sun came out. Not that we were bothered - some new walking boots and who is worried about the weather? Not sure I would have wanted to camp though. There were plenty of people around who looked like they were struggling to keep from being completely covered in mud but then there is the joy of camping.

Finally for today a picture of Cormorant Fishermen lining up to sell their catch in some high-up tributary of one of the big Chinese rivers. OK then - it's the queue to board a launch on Derwent Water at Keswick. There are of course real Cormorants on all the lakes .. and Grebes and other lesser birds as well. I have no lens long enough to make any of these appear as anything other than a blur in the distance but we saw them.