Yes, I know, Wordsworth, Beatrix Potter, Ruskin, all that. Lakes, looming hills, drystone walls, little stone villages and towns, sheep... All just lovely, even under a leaden sky. And that's the problem, of course: everyone wants to come here and see all this natural and man-made beauty for themselves. So they do. In their many, many thousands.
Even today, a grey June Wednesday, the roads, the towns and even the hills, were teeming -TEEMING - with people. It was a mission finding spaces in car parks, walking around market squares, passing other vehicles in claustrophobically narrow lanes hemmed in by stone walls and luxuriant borders of nettles and cow parsley, or taking photos without eager Baby Boomers in them (Coniston Water, above, a rare triumph in this respect). I'm not used to this sort of thing - we don't do teeming in New Zealand - and it spoiled my enjoyment. Possibly because I myself am spoiled. And counting myself fortunate to be so.
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