Bassenthwaite – Snow on the Tops

Bassenthwaite, Cumbria, Brian Kent, copyright

Leaving the Lake District I always wonder why I am going and when I will be back… The last time we stopped on the way and looked at the clouds and the water and then got back in the car and drove the long drive down the motorways to the place we call home.  I put this photo of Brian’s on my desktop and it has been there ever since, reminding me that there is a big wide world out there and much of it is beautiful.

Do you keep favourite photos on your desktop?  Do you have places you long to return to?

44 thoughts on “Bassenthwaite – Snow on the Tops”

  1. cityhippyfarmgirl

    I’ve only been to that area the once and it was indeed beautiful. So many beautiful places to visit… I’ll bet you would love Tasmania Joanna. Stunning wilderness there. That area still draws me to it… it’s cold, isolated, wild and unpredictable- what’s not to like!

    1. Joanna Post author

      I would love to have done serious trekking in my fitter younger days. I am sure Tasmania is completely wonderful :)

  2. Debra Kolkka

    What a beautiful photo! We have had snow here and the village was looking gorgeous yesterday, but it is already melting and will be gone soon.

  3. Ann

    What a lovely photo. I rotate scenes of Northumberland on my desktop. BBC Tyne used to publish readers’ photographs and I grabbed a few that took my eye.

    1. Joanna Post author

      I will have a look and see if we have any of Northumberland, we had a visit there a long time ago now, just after foot and mouth and it was very empty of livestock.

  4. Jeannette

    The Lake District and parts of Scotland are the most beautiful places on earth! That’s what I think anyway!

    1. Joanna Post author

      I don’t know Scotland very well but I have seen lots of beautiful imagery from there. Curiously That sequence in ‘I know where I am going’ where she falls askeep on the train and the fields turn to tartan suddenly popped up in my mind :)

  5. Alicia (foodycat)

    The Lakes and Cornwall tie for the most beautiful places I have seen in the UK – and possibly the world. Always happy to be planning a trip to either.

    1. Joanna Post author

      There are so many lovely places, but I am a sucker for big skies and watery reflections in particular :)

    1. Joanna Post author

      Maybe we should have a share your desktop ‘meme’ – Do you have one you can post on your blog for me ? xx

  7. Elaine

    Wonderful photo – my mother came from that area and remembers it fondly. We recently visited Northern Ireland and I now have a photo of one of the many views we photographed on my desk top – it is a lovely and constant reminder of the breathtaking coastline.

    1. Joanna Post author

      Did you go to Dundrum Bay, Elaine? I can remember staying there when I was tiny and going out to collect mussels with a donkey when the tide was out. Coastlines can be fabulous !

      1. Elaine

        No we didn’t actually get down to Dundrum Bay although we did drive past it. There wasn’t a lot of time for exploration unfortunately but we hope to go back for a longer visit.

    1. Joanna Post author

      You feel as if you are in a different place from everyday life, unless of course you live there :)

  9. Melanie

    That is a beautiful picture Joanna. Clouds, water, snow and bright green grass are my favorites in photos. The picture I keep on my desktop is of a very wide shorter mountain (possibly) with gently sloping sides that has just a few roads winding around it at the base and the whole rest of the mountain is a bright green and there is a river and another sloping green field in the foreground. I wish to find this place some day. In my mind I think it is probably somewhere in Ireland or New Zealand, not quite sure.
    Hope you have a wonderful day Joanna!! xx

    1. Joanna Post author

      Your photo sounds lovely Melanie, in a way it is quite exciting not to know where it is, you can imagine all sorts of things. When I look at this photo I can also hear the sound of the road traffic behind us. Lots of the lakes are bordered on one side by roads as they are the only way through the valleys.

  10. drfugawe

    There is something in the psyche of the human which creates a longing for something unattainable – I think if we were ever able to fully satisfy that longing, perhaps we’d have reached the true end of our journey. These pictures exist, in our minds and eyes, to remind us of where we’ve been and where we’re still going – they connect our physical and spiritual beings. Thanks for sharing.

  11. heidiannie

    i wrote last night and then lost my comment right before posting it. I tend to have pictures of people I love on my desk top. Pictures of places don’t occur to me- I just stand there and soak in the beauty and the atmosphere so that I can bring it up in my mind’s eye- and then I generally forget to actually take a picture!
    So I have lots of faces and food pictures and very few scenery. But I have lots of places I want to return to- North Umberland, Lindesfarne, the Grand Canyon,Garden of the Gods in Colorado, The Lake District, and the Pacific Northwest- especially along the coast of Oregon-oh and the Canadian Rockies, and Banff. There are so many more- but just writing up this small list, I am misty-eyed and longing to go back. Thanks for inspiring a very thoughtful and nostalgic time.

    1. Joanna Post author

      I have the pictures of my family too, on a board behind the computer and in a little flippy frame thing. This is the photo on the screen of my computer (which I refer to as my desktop, probably a geek word, oops). I am not very good at bringing up images in my mind’s eye, I have a poor visual memory in general. On the bright side that means that when I go somewhere beautiful I have been before I can be surprised all over again :) I love the name Garden of the Gods, I will have to look it up and find some images. I have been to Banff and the Rockies and they are like a much bigger and wilder version of the Lakes, I loved them !

      Edit. Heidi I do know the Garden of the Gods! mow I look at photos, just not that was the name. I must have seen it in seversl movies. Like New York, when and if one gets there, it all seems very familiar.

      1. heidiannie

        I went to look for old photos after I mentioned it, Joanna- and I found some pictures of myself standing under one of those huge balanced rocks- I might have been 10 or eleven years old. I thought I was older when we went exploring in that area- but no- I would like to go back there as an adult. I spent most of a summer in Arizona when I was 14 and went into the desert and the Grand Canyon that year- I really don’t want to go back in to the desert. Now most of my wandering seems to lead to an ocean and a beach.

        1. Joanna Post author

          I love your photos of the ocean when you are visiting over there :)

          Loosely connected to your mentioning old photos and memories, I read this lovely piece by Oliver Sacks in the New York Review of Books online

          I don’t think I will be racing off to the desert, I wilt when the temperature gets much above 75F and tend to start looking for shade. I prefer much cooler climates as long as there is some sunshine.

          1. heidiannie

            I found that article fascinating! Coming from a family of seven siblings, there is a narrative for each of us that our mother passed on to us- and now all my older brothers and sisters are getting so confused that they will start telling someone else’s story as though it were their own. I keep biting my tongue rather than correcting, but I find it hard to deal with them when they assert that these things actually happened to them when they weren’t even in the picture at the time of the event.
            Thanks for sharing this, Joanna!

            1. Joanna Post author

              My sister does that too but I guess, by definition, we wouldn’t know if we were doing it unless someone confronted us with facts. I often wonder if our dreamlife plays s part in all this too. So glad you found it interesting, Oliver Sacks is a great accessible writer on neurology. Well worth reading. xx Jo

  12. Jan

    Hear hear to Doc’s comment. I remember sitting somewhere and trying to burn the image of the scenery onto my mind’s eye, but now I cannot even think where that was. I do think often that the emotion experienced at the time of being in a particularly beautiful place is always attached to the image and therefore the place. Your photo is very beautiful. I have one of BDL’s on my work desktop and one of my family on my home desktop. Peter has one he took in Milford Sound in New Zealand, it’s rugged, ancient scenery sprinkled with snow and reminds us of a wonderful holiday in New Zealand. As for a place I long to return to – that would be my childhood memories of holidays spent at my grandmothers home in Kent, Tankerton and the nearby town of Whitstable. I always felt safe there and even though I know family folklore says it always rained on our holidays, in my memory it’s always sunny.

    1. Joanna Post author

      Milford Sound is utterly beautiful, I would love to visit, a dream I think. The grandmother’s home, I can relate to that feeling too. I love the way memories attach to different aspects of our experience.

      Having written this little post, I was catching up on the paper last night and read this great piece about Scunthorpe. I enjoyed the characterization of the Lakes and it made me laugh. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/10/scunthorpe-rough-and-ready-charm

      1. Jan

        SBLOCKEDhorpe – that’s such a funny piece – I love it and it’s characterisations.

  13. Abby

    Oh my, that is such an incredibly gorgeous view! Thanks for sharing…I needed it in the middle of this dreary winter. :-)

    1. Joanna Post author

      It is mostly dreary right nos, the odd sunny day,but for the most part the sky is like the inside of an aluminium saucepan. But it makes the sunny days even more appreciated when they do appear xx

  16. Misky

    The Lake District is a magnificent area. We also explored the region west of the lakes, up and over the mountains toward the coast. The views were stunning! Took a tour of the old slate mines, which was fascinating. My desktop at the moment is covered in ferns. :)

    1. Joanna Post author

      The coast is great – Dad and I had a mad drive up the coast one day last summer, can’t remember what our mission was but it was all very exciting. Ferns sound very restful Misky :)

      1. Misky

        The ferms are a lovely shade of deep green. I’m looking forward to seeing that colour again in the garden. :)

  17. ray@garlicbuddha

    Screen savers help with addressing my own work stresses, I often use my own photographs. I have posted my latest one on my blog. It is a snowy landscape at the Rother Valley Country Park where I run. :)

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