Lower Borrowdale

Finally we manage to get out for a walk. There is usually something to stop us, but today we didn't feel up to garden slavery and the sun was shining so we thought a walk in the 'Frozen Valley' would be good.
We used to take the children here in the winter for walks, and one year when the weather had been arctic for weeks we wrapped them up warmly and set off.
Lower Borrowdale faces north and gets not a ray of sunshine in the winter, and on this memorable visit the children were delighted to find that the whole landscape was frozen solid. The river was a fairy tale vision of frozen waterfalls, and you could skate on the road which was a perfect sheet of ice. Hence it's family name.
We were not expecting this today, and found it only lightly frozen in parts. However we did set off up the road with some trepidation as the landowner has had plans to turn the valley into a holiday park, unsuitable though that might sound. What we did find was a very big area of fencing and tree planting which is what the enclosures in the photo are. No doubt the tax payer will have paid for this, but some of us will find it a much better alternative to previous plans.