Spent a lovely morning at Brantwood- John Ruskin's cottage and its expansive grounds. He's one of my favorite writers and thinkers of the period. We brought flasks of hot coffee and sandwiches, granola and yoghurt, and sat by the pebbled banks of the lake. The weather's amazing. Dunno, but for a city girl, I could almost relate to how these views inspire words to flow. However, I couldn't imagine walking around in the voluminous skirts women wore in 1800s. How inconvenient.
Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. ~ John Ruskin
There I was, taking in the stunning sights, enjoying the absolute silence of nature, and a thought popped into the mind and I began laughing uncontrollably. Never mind being wrapped up in John Ruskin's Victorian and still relevant ideas of environmentalism, sustainability and craft.
It must have been too much Peter Rabbit floating around. (Beatrix Potter's 17th century farmhouse is beautifully quaint.) I stared at the caramelized onions in the sandwich and all thoughts went to the Mole shrieking "Onion-sauce!", courtesy of Kenneth Grahame's 'Wind in the Willows'. Hurhurhur.
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