Oh deer!

Another day where we tried to ignore the rain. No matter, we had a brush with English wildlife.

The boys did a ton of schoolwork this morning while Jennifer and I organised things and sent some stuff back home.

Then, this afternoon, we walked up into the hills behind Windermere. The first part of the walk took us on public footpaths through farmers’ fields. The boys were nervous the whole time as they kept a careful eye out for the aggressive bulls and cows the signs warned of while trying to dodge the cow pats that were spread around like pungent land-mines.

We the entered a lovely old forest area full of mossy growths and dark dells. Everywhere we looked was a rich green or brown colour. At one point we crested a rise and Declan quietly held his arms out and demanded we stop. There, in a meadow, were four small deer, nervously cropping the grass. They noticed themselves being watched almost immediately and skittishly ran off; although we managed to keep them in intermittent sight for a little while.

The top of the hill afforded wonderful views over the lake. The dark, lowering clouds actually looked good from that perspective.

As we walked down the hill the clouds lowered and the forest thickened until we were walking in almost darkness, this at 4pm. By the time we made it out of the forest and back to the town the skies had opened and it was bucketing down.

We didn’t care, we’d seen some wildlife.