In the footsteps of Nella Last.

Spark Bridge

Terrace at BrantwoodOver Coniston Lake

Walney Island near Barrow

From Brantwood across Coniston

Teatime with a view at Brantwood.

cheeky robin who liked our cakes!

Nella Last's home in Barrow from where  she wrote her wartime diaries.

How time flies, can it really be a week since we returned from a short break up in the Lake District. The weather could not have been better and we made the most of the glorious sunshine and clear blue skies and explored the area around Ulverston and Barrow.

I have been reading and throughly enjoying the wartime diaries of Nella Last,a lady who wrote for the Mass Observation project set up in WW2. She was real character and her diaries are so entertaining to pick up and immerse yourself into.

We found her house in Ilkley Road, Barrow and then went on some favourite car journeys that she liked to take during the 1940s and 50s, one being the coast road route from Barrow to Coniston, via Spark Bridge a place she visited often as her Aunt lived there.
I got to see all the places she so vividly described in her diaries as we found villages that we have never explored before.

When we arrived at Coniston, I took Peter for the best tea and cakes to be found in the Lakes, at the tearoom at Brantwood, John Ruskin's home on the Lakeside.
The local bird population share my love of the wonderful baking on offer and were soon coming close for all the crumbs.
See also my post Nella Last's last wish. Oct]