June 11--The Lake District

The weather was (again) a little rainy.  Drove into Keswick which is the main town in the district and found a laundry where we washed the clothing we'd worn for the past few days.  After finishing that duty we walked the town and I swear every other shop was selling hiking, climbing, mountain biking stuff.  Betsy discovered that an art pencil she uses is made here and they had a factory outlet! Apparently about a hundred years ago a couple of sheepherders found a deposit of graphite which they thought might be a form of coal.  That didn't work out for them, but they discovered that it left a smudge on their hands that was pretty much waterproof so they started using it to mark their sheep.  Someone else took it step further and invented the graphite pencil. 
After Keswick we took a drive through the Newland Valley which was beautiful despite the rain and clouds.
We've gotten into a routine of eating which would probably kill us at home, but we're doing so much walking that we will probably survive.  In the morning we have an English breakfast which consists of eggs (scrambled, fried, or poached), incredible English bacon (much thicker and more flavorable than ours), sausage, beans, toast, and coffee or tea.  After the first couple days we tell our hostess that we'll just have eggs and one piece of bacon, one sausage, toast and coffee or tea as we can't eat all that food.  About 1 or 2 PM we'll stop at a tea room and have a little something.  Betsy usually has tea and scones with clotted cream and jam.  I'm on a mission to try every Lemon Drizzle Cake that I run into along with coffee.  About 5 or 6PM we'll find somewhere to have dinner.  If we're in the country we'll try and find an inn with food or if we're in town we'll find a restaurant or pub. The food over here is much more flavorful since they don't put all the chemicals in it.