Coming from a country where when it rains it pours, I had been feeling dehydrated in Dubai, where it is hot most of the year.
So when my parents suggested that we spend the summer on Lake Windermere in England, it was a dream come true for me.
Windermere, the land of lakes and daffodils made famous by the English poet William Wordsworth, is a beautiful place.
My holiday began with the flight to London, from where we took a train to Windermere station — a three-hour journey through the beautiful countryside.
We were to vacation with some of our friends who live in Oxford. They had booked us all into a villa on the eastern shore of Lake Windermere, in a little town called Bowness-on-Windermere.
Bowness is a picturesque town, with old Victorian and Edwardian buildings, bright with colourful flowers.
Ducking in and out
We spent the first day on the lakeshore, where millions of geese, ducks and swans vie for food from tourists.
I had a great time watching cygnets waddle after their mothers. The birds were all very tame and did not hesitate to come up to us and pluck food from our hands.
With a variety of fish-and-chips shops to pick from, we were not hungry for long either.
Over the next week, we got a taste of English life. I spent my second day at Windermere with Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddleduck at The World of Beatrix Potter.
This recreation of Beatrix Potter's books for children, which I had read last year, is complete with the sights, sounds and smells of the English countryside.
I also learnt a lot about Beatrix Potter's life and how she was inspired to write stories for children.
There is also a little shop where you can buy soft toys and keychains and picture postcards with characters from Beatrix Potter's books.
Later we had English tea at a little teashop, with hot, buttered scones, strawberry jam and clotted cream — it was very, very yum.
Cottage of memories
On a bright sunny day, we drove to Grasmere to see the place where William Wordsworth spent his life — at a little cottage — with his sister Dorothy.
This is where Wordsworth wrote much of his poetry and Dorothy kept her famous journals.
Like many buildings in the Lake District, Dove Cottage is made of stone, with white, lime-washed walls to keep out the damp.
A guide takes you on a 20-minute tour of the house. Many of Wordsworth's household items — furniture, family possessions and portraits — are displayed in the cottage.
Even the garden is in the same state as when it was created by the Wordsworths.
Dove Cottage is looked after by the Wordsworth Trust which, in 1981, built an amazing museum. This, together with the Wordsworth Library, houses one of the greatest collections of manuscripts, books and paintings on British Romanticism.
Tunnel of adventure
Wordsworth often visited the town of Bowness-on-Windermere and go to The White Lion, now the Royal Hotel.
He has even mentioned this in one of his poems, The Prelude. Wordsworth also often used the ferry to cross Lake Windermere.
Dove Cottage was William Wordsworth's home from December 1799 to May 1808, his best years as a poet.
This is where he wrote his most famous poem, The Daffodils, which he was inspired to write during a walk with his sister along Lake Windermere.
Our next adventure on the lake was a ferry ride to the little Lakeside station to visit the Lakeside Aquarium. There were freshwater and saltwater exhibits.
We walked through a long underwater tunnel, where we could see a variety of fish as well as ducks around us.
From octopus and seahorses to turtles and piranhas, we were introduced to all creatures of the sea — up close and personal.
We could even put our faces close to the water surface in the little tanks which housed starfish and snails, although we were forbidden to touch them.
But the cute otters were the highlight of the visit. They were being fed while we watched. There were even interactive games through which we learnt a lot about food cycles and evolution.
Not rained out
Although it rained most of the time we were in Windermere, it was a wonderful stay for us. The villa we stayed in had gardens rolling down to the shore of the lake.
A picturesque place, on clear days we could see the hotels and mansions across the lake.
Some days we spent just splashing about in the Jacuzzi and then coming back up to the villa for cups of hot chocolate.
If we complained about the rain, my mother would say we were rain harvesting for our days back in Dubai. I will cherish this holiday for the rest of my life.
— Sabreena Shukul is a student of Grade 3 at Delhi Private School, Sharjah
