Page 29 of The Happiness Project

I then look up at the table and declare, ‘Well, I’m off to the buffet before Ed the food monster gets there.’

I stand and the others follow me to fill plates with more than any one of us would ever normally eat in the morning.

I hadn’t thought I’d actually be hungry but I’ve returned to the table with a little of everything and I eat it all without pausing.

‘Blimey, girl,’ says Patty. ‘You’re going to need to do all those mountains to work that lot off.’

‘Pot calling kettle,’ I say, looking at the empty plate sitting in front of her. ‘And you’re planning gingerbread later.’

‘I was built for comfort not speed,’ is all she says.

From the groans and moans of pleasure, there is agreement around the table that the breakfast is exceptional. When Ed is finished he looks longingly over at the buffet table.

‘I’m at that junction where I’ve loved what I’ve eaten and I want more but I know it would be too much.’

‘Always leave ’em wanting more,’ Patty tells him. ‘That’s my motto.’

‘You’re a fountain of wisdom this morning, Patience,’ I say as we all leave the table. ‘If the Dalai Lama needs an assistant, I’ll put a good word in for you.’

* * *

We load our suitcases into our cars and begin our walk through the village up towards Dove Cottage, which was Wordsworth’s home. It’s an exceptionally pretty place which you could imagine being recreated on a film set as a perfect setting for a city-girl-comes-home romance or a cosy mystery. The dark-slate shops with their bright-white window frames host mainly cafés, artworks and outdoor gear. I pause at one of the art shops and browse the paintings, thinking it would be fairly difficult to create anything that wasn’t beautiful living here. I select one that reminds me of the colours I saw this morning and the assistant puts it behind the counter for me to collect on my way back.

Dove Cottage is a whitewashed building like many others around here. We’re booked in for a tour and our guide tells us that the poet lived here with his sister Dorothy for eight years when he was twenty-nine and that he composed many of his famous works in the house. I’m surprised by how simple it is and express this.

‘It was a time of plain living and high thinking,’ our guide is saying. ‘Wordsworth’s words, not mine. He wrote them in 1802 and pretty much predicted how the world would unfold.’

He has been carrying a well-thumbed book of poetry and opens it now, clearing his throat before he begins to read.

‘The wealthiest man among us is the best:

No grandeur now in nature or in book

Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense,

This is idolatry; and these we adore:

Plain living and high thinking are no more . . .’

‘He was lamenting the world’s love of material things over nature, of show over substance, and I think he got it spot on,’ says the guide. ‘So the house is simple but the garden was the place he really loved. He called it “the loveliest spot man hath ever found” — let’s go outside.’

From the spontaneous look of horror on Patty’s face I know she would far rather stay in the warm, but I give her a shove to walk in front of me. As it’s January, the guide has to try and describe how it would look in full bloom and although I nod along, I’ve never been a gardener so can barely relate to what he’s saying and don’t know many of the plants he mentions, although obviously even I know what a rose bed looks like. The guide then directs us to what was Wordsworth’s favourite spot, a small hut at the top of some steps, which the poet apparently wanted to resemble a wren’s nest filled with moss and surrounded by heather.

‘So, men had sheds even back then,’ whispers Patty.

We’re told that it can’t be fully appreciated from this angle and that we have to climb the steps to see it from Wordsworth’s perspective. With all the huffing and puffing you’d have thought the guide had asked our book group to conquer Scafell, not a few stone steps. It’s worth it as we all look out over the fells from Wordsworth’s favourite spot. Peter certainly speaks for me when he says, ‘I can see how he was inspired here.’

The guide recites ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ while we stand taking in the landscape and give him a round of applause at the end. We walk back down the steps to end our tour and as we do Ed asks the guide whether it’s true that Wordsworth went to school with Fletcher Christian.

‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘They both went to Cockermouth Free School but William was six years younger than Fletcher, so I don’t know about you, but I never knew anyone six years either side of me when I was at school. Been reading Grave Tattoo?’

We explain that we’re a book group and we’re in Grasmere because that’s exactly what we’ve been doing.

‘It’s a lovely thought that they knew each other and certainly quite remarkable that such a small place could produce two such important historical figures, but I think it’s probably a fantasy held by the author, as is the notion that Wordsworth met Fletcher in later life,’ he says as he’s shaking our hands goodbye.

‘Did you get the impression that he didn’t want his beloved poet sullied by the imagination of a crime writer?’ asks Peter.

‘It could be that he does his best to bring the poet and his poetry to life and all he gets asked about is a spurious connection with a mutineer,’ Caroline says.

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