Day Two arrived in Scotland with a very early morning. Too early. We all had to be on the bus at 545, so it was up at 5 a.m. for most of us. Our plan for the day was to go to the Lake District with the Children's Literature Class. It was to be a real treat to see everything to do with Beatrix Potter!
(Side Note: Now, I'm really not here to complain but I don't care about Beatrix Potter. Her life really has no bearing on my future career and there are better things to see in the Lake District than her home and surroundings. I actually cannot remember when I last read any of her books, and probably never read them because someone read them to me. So she's not really important and I would have liked seeing the lakes in the Lake District instead. Or maybe a library! What a novel idea!)
Alas, we were stuck, and off we went to the Lake District. Back to England! We made a stop for breakfast along the way and arrived at the World of Beatrix Potter Attraction around 930. That was a 20 minute walk through of the world of Beatrix Potter, complete with smells and sounds and weird creepy life-size of Peter Rabbit, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, Benjamin Bunny, and all those other weird human-like animals. The men running the door asked us why we left Edinburgh to come to the Lake District. Sirs, we were asking ourselves the same question...
After that, we boarded the bus again and drove about 30 minutes to where we were getting lunch. A free lunch was our treat for getting up at 5 a.m. The booze wasn't free though, and we had to sit through a forty-five minute lecture from the President of the Beatrix Potter Society. That was riveting.
Then it was back on the bus to drive to Hill Top, BP's (Beatrix Potter from now on. I'm too tired of typing her full name). We had an hour to walk through a five-room house. I stood outside in the rain for about 45 minutes of that hour. Then it was back on the bus to go to our final stop: Wordsworths's grave. How that connect to BP, I'll never know, but it was in the vicinity, so hey, why not? We walked there, saw it, took a photo, and then had another half hour to kill before leaving.
Then it was back on the bus only to stop an hour later to eat at a rest stop. Yay rest stop food. Just what I needed. It was awful. Then back on the bus for another two hours. We finally reached the house at 930 p.m. It was late and I was tired but it began our mini-break a day early so that was an added benefit to a truly ridiculous and kind of wasted day.
Here is how this day could have been more efficient:
1. Stopping only a few times. For example, eating lunch at the first place we stopped and then eating dinner at the last place we stopped. That would have cut down our stoppage and driving time. We could have left later and probably arrived home earlier. In fact, if we arrived home earlier, we wouldn't have needed to stop for dinner on the road and then could have eaten when we returned to Dalkeith.
2. Not overestimating the time we have to spend at every place. We didn't need an hour at Hill Top. We probably could have seen the first place in about 30-40 minutes, instead of an hour.
3. Not going to these locations at all...while there might have been some benefit to seeing these places, I really don't know how BP's life will be important to my career as an archivist. Even some of the future Children's Librarians were grasping at straws to discover why this was a good idea.
So that was my Tuesday. It was spent mainly in England, despite the fact that we were supposed to be in Scotland. It kind of took away from my time in Scotland and my ability to see Edinburgh. Still, I may find some silver lining in this trip but it wasn't the highlight of this month.
- Kate
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