Without Lifting A Finger

Finished Coetzee's The Pole in two days. An easy read. Titillating but hardly "real" and, like all good reads I suppose, leaving you wanting.:) Back to Wordsworth's Guide to the Lake District. I hope I can find a spot to build. Perhaps in the area of the old Roman fort? Or on that cloud-with-a-view WW suggested earlier in the book? WW: Our fancies could not resist the temptation; and we fixed upon a spot for a cottage, which we began to build:* and finished as easily as castles are raised in the air.—

Going to the Lake District soon (God willing). Haven't been since 1987. Thought it would be fun to read Wordsworth's Guide.:) Excerpt on climate: It may now be proper to say a few words respecting climate, and ‘skiey influences,’* in which this region, as far as the character of its landscapes is affected by them, may, upon the whole, be considered fortunate. The country is, indeed, subject to much bad weather, and it has been ascertained that twice as much rain falls here as in many parts of the island; but the number of black drizzling days, that blot out the face of things, is by no means proportionally great. Nor is a continuance of thick, flagging, damp air, so common as in the West of England and Ireland. The rain here comes down heartily, and is frequently succeeded by clear, bright weather,* when every brook is vocal, and every torrent sonorous; brooks and torrents, which are never muddy, even in the heaviest floods, except, after a drought, they happen to be defiled fo...

This came to mind because of all the snow in the Midwest (don't know how much, probably not a lot, but if you're pining for SPRING ...). So: this is for all the shut-ins and snowed-ins, longing for spring to come and/or wanting to get back to England's Lake District (I swear I saw a crowd of daffodils off the path to Buttermere -- years ago). This "clip" is brought to you by the Poetry Foundation: I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud . *

Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth (25 December 1771 – 25 January 1855) was an English author, poet and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth , and the two were close all their lives. Wordsworth had no ambitions to be an author, and her writings consist only of series of letters, diary entries, poems and short stories. Life She was born on Christmas Day in Cockermouth , Cumberland in 1771. Despite the early death of her mother, Dorothy, William and their three step-brothers had a happy childhood. When in 1783, their father died and the children were sent to live with various relatives, Wordsworth was sent alone to live with her aunt, Elizabeth Threlkeld, in Halifax, West Yorkshire. [1] After she was able to be reunited with William, firstly at Racedown Lodge in Dorset in 1795 and afterwards (1797/98) at Alfoxden House in Somerset, they became inseparable companions. The pair lived in poverty at first, and would often beg for cast-off clothes from their fr...