I had not expected to be sitting at my keyboard this afternoon. The sun was shining, there was blue in the sky, and it would have been an excellent opportunity to drive to one or two of the places here in the Eden Valley where I’ve been wanting to take photographs but have been waiting for the weather.

So why am I here? Well, I got to the car, put the key in the ignition, turned it, and ….. Nothing! So here I am, temporarily stranded at home, and instead I’ll just have to write to all you good people who read the Around-England blog.

Tomorrow I’m planning to publish a post outlining some of the good things planned for the Around-England sites during 2012. Today, though, I thought I’d look back over 2011 to some of my favourite posts of the year.

• Wordsworth and the Lake District Rivers was a January post, anticipating several further items referring to Wordsworth and his Cockermouth birthplace which followed as the year progressed.
• In February I stopped one morning at Devil’s Bridge, Kirkby Lonsdale, and a further visit to the town later in the year produced photographs including Ruskin’s View.
• During the Spring there was an “Around-England hiatus”. We moved from the East Midlands to the Eden Valley in Cumbria and couldn’t get a broadband connection for several weeks (moan, moan, yes I’m still moaning at the almost ‘criminal’ neglect of non-urban areas by the broadband service suppliers). By June, though, I was able to upload photos of the Appleby Gypsy Horse Fair week.
• Being now based in Cumbria gave many opportunities to re-explore parts of the Lake District, and here is another of my favourite views – Bassenthwaite Lake from the Whinlatter road.
• In August the Yorkshire Dales drew me back, with a post about Bolton Abbey, a beautiful spot by the River Wharfe. (I posted another photo of Bolton Abbey in November).

Much more followed, but that’s probably enough for now. England as a whole is a beautiful country, and I’ll be trying increasingly on this site to spread out beyond the North – but there’s so much to cover in the Northern counties alone with their four National Parks and other Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Mountains, rivers, lakes, coastline, history; the North has all of this and more. During this new year I’m hoping to be able to add more on the North Pennines and the Yorkshire Dales, but for now, here’s a photograph from the Eden Valley in the Autumn.

River Eden at Appleby - An Autumn View Looking Dowstream from The Sands

Sorry for the superfluous post. This is a three-year-old page now replaced. Please click on the title here and it should take you to the updated content.

While I’m here I’ll mention that today I’ve done a major update of the page on Keswick

When we moved to Cumbria in late March we were badly let down by our broadband service supplier. By the end of April we still were not on-line, so changed supplier. Sadly, our new “service” supplier has proved to be no better at keeping promises, but we do now hope to be back to normal on 2nd June. Meanwhile, I’m sorry there’s been such a long gap.

I’ve just noticed this morning that Amazon.co.uk have the Wainwright Walks complete BBC series 1 & 2 presented by Julia Bradbury on offer at half price for the DVD boxed set. (Click on the box)

This would be a great gift for someone who loves the English Lake District, or even for someone who needs introducing to Lakeland.  My recommendation would be to grab a set while they’re available at this price.

Also, if you’re a Julia Bradbury fan there are other DVDs available there: Wainwright Walks Coast To Coast [2009] and Railway Walks with Julia Bradbury [2009]. In fact there’s an amazing offer if you take all three together.

When, as a young lad, my great-grandad was running around the Lake District fells above High Swinklebank in Longsleddale “helping” his father with the sheep there was no way he could have pictured the life of a 21st century youngster.

In the mid-19th century there were no cars and other motors, let alone television. No Postman Pat trundled up the vale in his little red van to deliver the daily mail. This was a remote place in those days.

A century and a half later millions of children (and adults too!) came to love watching Pat deliver longingly-anticipated envelopes and parcels to the good people of Greendale, originally based on the Longsleddale valley.

Now the Westmorland Gazette reports that Pat is to hit the big screen in a 3-D animated feature length film. I look forward to it in my return to childhood.

On Friday I relaunched my “England’s Lakes” site.

The original version was created using a semi-automated site-builder.  That was good for speed, but unfortunately as the site developed it become too difficult to control the layout and content as precisely as I wished.  So now it’s entirely restructured and much easier to manage.

Most of the old features are still there with the exception of the news feed.  That was giving unpredictable results, so until I’ve figured out how to control it better I’ve decided to take it off.  Similarly, the automatic feed of Amazon items was sometimes generating irrelevant adverts in the sidebar; so that also has been removed and replaced by a few of my own hand-pick Amazon items with a clear relationship to the Lake District.

More pages are being added steadily, and existing pages are being expanded.  Our own hotel finder will be here very shortly (hopefully later this week), and many of the pages now include photographs from the Francis Frith collection.

I’ve also launched an English Lake District Hub Page which will parallel some of the content on the main site but I suspect that like my “England’s Lakes” Squidoo lens it will gradually take on a character of its own.

Happy “Laking”,

- David -

I am not a fisherman! That needs to be made clear from the start. I’m not going to pretend on this blog or web site to be the possessor of either knowledge or experience in this field. When my children were in their teens, twenty-five or more years ago, I had a short-lived urge to fish with them but it never developed (a bit like my golf!) … and then some burglars took my tackle and I never got around to replacing it.

So, where can I refer people for good solid information about fishing in the Lake District? I’ll certainly include short snippets on the pages about individual lakes or rivers based on information drawn from others, but for real information from experts I’ll have to send you elsewhere.

Fortunately there is such a place. It’s a marvelous site called, believe it or not, “Lake District Fishing“. Take a look at it. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

- David Murray -
England’s Lakes