Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere

Subject: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 03:48 AM

On telly this morning we were watching the weather report. The presenter was stood on the banks of Lake Windermere (UK Lake District for those not local). She was pointing out that many visitors expect to see "hosts of golden daffodils" as advertised by a famous poet. Because of the mild weather this winter, the daffs are out early and if there is a cold snap, the flowers could all get trashed.
Because of this possibility some bright spark has planted hundreds of fake flowers on the banks of the lake so that visitors over Easter will see daffodils.

It inspired me to write the following...




I wandered lonely as a cloud
That pisses down for hours and hours
And then ahead I suddenly see
A bunch of bloody plastic flowers






Roll over Wordsworth!
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Black Diamond
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 05:50 AM

sign of the times??? LOL
Lin

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Scrump
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 07:50 AM

<pedant>

I believe that should read "...on the banks of Windermere".

</pedant>

When I were a lad, I were told it was incorrect to refer to "Lake Windermere", because the "mere" part of the name means "lake". It would be equivalent to referring to "Mount Ben Nevis" in Scotland.

However, there is a town called Windermere, on the shore of Windermere, which does cause confusion at times... :-)

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: GUEST,Bainbo at work
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 09:58 AM

I wandered rat-arsed as a newt
On my way home from a spree.
I saw some flowers I thought were cute
-- And it was my anniversar-ee.
Beneath the trees, beside the lake -
I didn't know that they were fake.

"What luck," I thought, and acted quick.
"I'll take these flowers home for the wife
She'll think I'm a hopeless ro-man-tic;
These flowers could have saved my life."
I still thought my plan fantastic -
I didn't know that they were plastic

Now oft, when on my bed I lie,
Getting to grips with hospital grub,
And trying to see through a blackened eye,
I curse that trip out to the pub.
That they were false she soon detected
And walloped me where I least expected.

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 10:13 AM

There are still largeish populations of Wild Daffodils (Narcissus pseudonarcissus) in Cumbria - it's not necessary to go to overcrowded Windermere. I'm going up to photograph them in a week or so. I doubt whether they will have been 'trashed' by any frosts (they have, after all, evolved over millions of years to cope with a bit of frost). Oh, to be in England now that Spring is here!

I'm not telling you where my colonies are - just in case you're one of those b....rds who can't resist picking them!

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: GUEST,Bainbo at work
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 10:25 AM

That sparks another thought, Shimrod. Your petite, rather pale wild daffodils are likely to be the kind that Wordsworth saw, aren't they? Not the taller, gaudier kind that grow there now (and which, presumably, are being duplicated in plastic).

So anyone who goes there hoping for a repeat of the Lakeland Luvvy's inspiration is going to be cheated.

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 11:11 AM

They were indeed the smaller, paler versions of daffodils. I went to Windermere for the day once. From Dorset.

LTS

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Scrump
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 11:19 AM

I went to Windermere for the day once

Was that the town, or the lake, LTS? :-)

I'll be photographing the host of golden daffodils in our garden. Perhaps not as many as there are in Westmorland, but think of the good it will do my carbon footprint :-)

Glencoyne Bay (Ullswater) is the place to see the poet's famous 'host' (assuming it's still there).

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 11:57 AM

Both. Went home via Bradford and was back in Dorset in time for last orders.

LTS

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Scrump
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 12:01 PM

Sounds as if you didn't hang around then LTS - didn't you like it there? :-)

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Flash Company
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 12:23 PM

Oh, they've altered me flowers an' I don't know why,
For there was nowt wrong wi' 'em that's not a lie,
They blame Global Warming, they're daft as can be,
They're all made o' plastic an' they won't do for me.

I could probably improve on that, but a bit short of time at the moment.
In the area where I was dragged up there was a house of Tudor origin called Holford Hall where the orchard was always full of wild daffs at this time of the year. Old Mrs Whalley, who was the grandmother of one of my school pals used to sell them for 6d a bunch.
I rather suspect that the new owners of the property have bulldozed the lot.

FC

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 12:26 PM

I wandered lonely as a bard,
In Cumbria beside a lake.
'Twas then some lovely daffodils,
I ventured forth to take.
'Twas that they looked so very fine,
As there beside the lake I stood.
I stooped to pick those beautious flowers,
But tumbled o'er a piece of wood.
My mind did stray to Wordsworths words,
Portraying scenes that were fantastic.
Stooped again to pick those daffs,
And found that they were made of plastic.
Thus sank my heart in disarray,
That I could not those flowers reap.
Now I will enter that great lake,
And drown myself in waters deep.
So Bright spark whoe'er thou art,
I tell you with civility.
My death in great lake Windermere,
Is your responsibility.

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Scrump
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 12:29 PM

I noticed the other day when driving through Ridgmont in Bedfordshire, England, near J13 of the M1, where they are building a bypass round the village, there is a field of daffs that had been half ploughed up by the wheels of the JCBs etc. It was as if the contractors had just driven their massive vehicles over the daffs without giving a toss for spoiling the countryside - fairly symbolic of the government's attitude, I thought :-)

I thought at the time it would be a good subject for a song.

Buggered if I can think of one right now though. Maybe George or someone better at this sort of thing could come up with summat?

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 12:37 PM

Makes you feel like an ex-tractor fan eh?

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 04:08 PM

Dear pedant, our school field centre (No, not the intersection of lines drawn between opposite corners of the field) was at a Lake District village named Torpenhow. Literally Hill Hill Hill. I therefore think that Lake Lake is perfectly acceptable, and a fairly mild form of address.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: GUEST,Sue Allan
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 04:34 PM

Just by way of being even more pedantic, the daffodils Wordsworth wrote about were on the shores of Ullswater (that's NOT Ullswater Lake either!)

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 06:49 PM

I sympathise with you, Scrump. Bastards driving heavy vehicles always seem to choose the most sensitive spots (from a botanical point of view) to drive through; because, to them, it's just 'worthless wasteland', I suppose.
I've actually got a nature reserve across the road from me but I gave up reporting my botanical finds to the wardens because they always seemed to find it necessary to drive one of their Land Rovers through it's habitat about a week or so later. And if nature reserve wardens can't spot an environmentally sensitive area when they see one there's no hope for anyone else. This is how the 5th (or is it 6th?) Great Extinction is happening - a little unheeded bit of 'worthless wasteland' at a time! Never mind, we can always replace it all with plastic facsimiles ... can't we?

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Scrump
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 10:09 AM

I forgot to add, re the field of daffs being ruined by the contractors and their vehicles: I also thought that the remaining daffs were symbolic of nature giving two fingers to the b******ds who seem intent on wiping them out.

If this had happened at just about any other time of year, I probably wouldn't have noticed. It's just that the daffs squelched under the wheels into the mud looked a lot worse than a field of grass would have in the same circumstances, and also the remaining daffs were standing defiantly as a symbol of nature carrying on regardless of man's callous indifference to its beauty.

Or summat like that, anyroad :-)

Must think of a song about this...

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Grimmy
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 10:41 AM

Being even, even more pedantic - Bassenthwaite Lake is the only lake in the Lake District (note the name). All the other bodies of water are either meres, waters or tarns.

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: GUEST, Mikefule
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 01:27 PM

We have Breedon on the Hill locally - another Hill Hill on the Hill.

Mere means lake, but in fact there is only one "lake" in the entire Lake District. The rest are meres or waters.

Plastic narcissi - I saw them on the front page of the tabloids... most days of the week for years: the Beckhams, supermodels... it's the way our society is going.

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 04:42 AM

I liked it fine, it was the person I was with who was doing the driving and calling the shots... got rid of him that July.

LTS

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 05:37 AM

Have you been back since, Liz - without him?

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 05:43 AM

Regretably, no... Manitas isn't that adventurous and won't go for 400mile day trips.

LTS

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 06:21 AM

Take him up there for a week then - combine it with a festival or something so he has an incentive.

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Flash Company
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 11:00 AM

Scrump.... with Joni in the papers this week maybe :-

The ministry say we've got to have a new by-pass,
So a big yellow 'dozer came and flattened all the flowers and grass,
Don't you thinnk it's awful sad that you don't know what you've got till it's gone,
They moved paradise to put up a parking lot!

FC

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: IanC
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 11:13 AM

Er ... wasn't Wordsworth describing the daffodils at Ullswater?

Subject: RE: Challenge - Daffodils at Windermere
From: Scrump
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 12:48 PM

Er ... wasn't Wordsworth describing the daffodils at Ullswater?

Yes, at Glencoyne Bay as I said above.