KESWICK. A Rainy Day In Hope Park.

Eryngium or Sea Holly. Beauty with a point. Several in fact.

While I’m not a great fan of getting wet there is sometimes a bit of magic to be had walking amongst the flowers on a rainy day. A recent visit to Keswick in the English Lake District was on a day that was damp around the edges to say the least. It didn’t seem to worry the tourists that were thronging the main street and the Saturday market as I made my way through from the bust stops by the Booths Supermarket and up to Lake Road and the lake. I was heading for the Derwentwater shore, the crowds tend to thin out there, the green vastness of the woodlands and shores out that way absorb the numbers of people and have a beautiful calming effect. Just before the Theatre By The Lake you pass by Hope Park an area of gardens gifted to the town in the 1970’s, it’s a clutch of paths and ornamental flowerbeds burbled through with a narrow stream, there’s a crazy golf course there, a few hardy souls were perfecting their technique as the drizzle absently drifted down. I took a couple of shots of the flowers and foliage before dawdling on my way to the lake, past the ice cream shop. Well you know, I don’t want to get too thin and healthy.