[This is a guest contribution to our blog by ten year old Alexander, who is staying here with us this week.]
On Valentine’s Day, we walked up to Blaeberry Fell above Keswick. We had an amazing view of Cat Bells and Derwent Water from our picnic lunch on a rocky outcrop (see photo opposite).
We were in search of a derelict shepherd’s cottage Ian had told us about. He had taken some pictures of it on the Rooftops of the World Gallery. We squelched across swampy moorland. Dad said “look for grey stone” so we did.
Soon enough we sighted a pile of grey mossy stones in a dip in the mountains. The picture below is of me and my sister in the ruins looking very pleased!
The cottage had been reduced over the years to rubble by the weather.
We reached the cottage and after a bit of exploring found roof tiles and a very old gutter. The gutter was encrusted with rust.
The roof slates were unusually thick and had holes for nails to go through. The moss covered stones defined the outlines of rooms.
Two rust coloured jambs were sticking up like a flagpole. Ian spotted a name carved onto one of them and a date – 12/1/49.
We could imagine what life was like when the shepherd and his family lived there with his sheep.
It was about 5:00 pm yesterday when this happened. Poppy (our brown cocker spaniel) was barking away outside the cottage. My dad went cautiously to see what was the matter. A prickly hedgehog was curled up hibernating, intimidated by the noise. 
There’s been plenty of snow in these last few days’ cold snap, but last Wednesday we were up early and driving north to revel in some of that near certain 
We wanted to fit in a recce for a May day walk I’m planning for members of the Ski Club of Manchester on the SE side of Ullswater. High Street dominates here and it must be one of the longest in the country. It lies to the east (and on the left) in the photo of Howe Grain opposite.
We’ve been last week to the magnificent Ford Madox Brown exhibition at the City Art Gallery in Manchester. It has now closed. The first comprehensive showing of his work for 40 years, the exhibition vividly shows both Brown’s contribution to Victorian painting and the range of his work. 
He is best known perhaps for his painting Work, (opposite) created between 1852-1863 and based on a street scene in Hampstead in London where the road is being dug up by navvies, who are surrounded by a cast of Victorian city dwellers – flower sellers, drunks, bonneted young women, horse riders, porters as well as social reformer, Thomas Carlyle. 
This shows an unemployed navvy with his tools, accompanied by his nursing wife and exhausted son as they rest during their tramp through the country lanes in search of work.
My favourite painting in the exhibition is Brown’s The Last of England, painted between 1852-55 and now in the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery collection. It’s a moving and colourful picture of a husband and wife with their children. Windswept and staring ahead, they are seated on the deck of a ship. They have just set set sail for Australia, a foreign land, where they are looking to find work.