Jo - United Kingdom Trails Journal - 2019

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Beatrix Potter-Lake Diztrict

Going home

“There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they’ll take you.” Beatrix Potter

This how I feel about our walk across the top of England which we start in a little over a week. This will be our first long walk outside of the U.S. and we anticipate a very different experience from our treks through the wilds of the American West. However, we are very much looking forward to having frequent access to pubs and tea shops and a little sight seeing along the way!

This will be my first trip home since my grandmother died in 1998 the longest I’ve ever been away. Where did the time go? It slipped away and I was not paying attention. I’m a little anxious about going home...England is no longer the land I knew as a child, and yet in my mind’s eye, it will always be so. The truth is, for the first time, I feel I may be a stranger in my own land.

And here is a salute to Beatrix Potter who donated more than 4000 acres to the National Trust when she died (the largest gift at the time), thereby enabling preservation of land now included in the Lake District National Park, continuation of fell farming and contributing greatly to my experience of the Lake District on our upcoming walk.

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