Antique? Well not quite but old, pre stainless steel certainly and quick to rust, if not dried after use.

But the decision made us also think about how best to store all the knives for easy retrieval. So this last Sunday after a lunch time discussion of alternatives, we decided on a magnetic knife holder.

They work like magic. I’d always fancied one but we’d never had the right space for it.

So log on to Amazon – yes we could have one and at 3.32 pm an email confirmed the 40 cms long rack had been dispatched with free next day delivery.

As promised, the van drew up a little after 2.00 pm on Monday and the parcel was handed over and signed off.

Amazon had got the rack selected, packed and delivered to a country area in under 24 hours from a Sunday start. Impressive.

No complaints there. This is online shopping at its best and saved me a lot of time.

But the box (opposite) was a different matter!

Slitting it open I wondered first if there was anything there. Loads of brown scrumpled up paper tumbled out, but no sign of the rack.

Finally I found it at the bottom, well packed in its own box. It measured 2 x 5 x 47 cms, so it didn’t take long to work out the Amazon delivery box (11 x 35 x 55 cms) would have held easily 34 of the racks – if I had wanted that many!

And that scrumpled up paper? On inspection it turned into a long seamless sausage-like creation, which flattened out into one continuous length of paper over five metres long by 38 cms wide.

For just one knife rack they had needed, because of the over large box, a length of packing paper that stretched from the eaves of the cottage to the flower bed – as you can see in the photo at the top of the page.

I’m a fan of online shopping because it can save on ‘travel to search’ time and costs. But the calculations from this example about use of resources are pretty scary. Just a hundred similar Amazon deliveries would use up 500 metres of the packing paper, which would either be thrown away or recycled at best. How many trees do you need for this and for the over large packaging?

The knives look great now and I had them installed on the new rack by 3.30 pm on Monday. That’s good going – a 24 hour turn round for job completion is fast. But isn’t it time Amazon looked at its wasteful packaging policies? No gold stars here for good environmental practice.

Yesterday we walked up from Millbeck on the south facing side of the Derwent Valley, for a brief afternoon walk and found a new track down from Slade Beck we hadn’t used before.

There’s lots of water running off the fells – and in the beck, which the ‘cragsure’ Herdwick sheep had little difficulty in leaping across. On our descent through the woods, we passed this magnificent waterfall (photo opposite), which was all of 30-35 feet in height.

A surprise? Yes, but it shouldn’t have been because when I got back I found it marked on the 1:25000 map. (For a route up Slade Beck which takes you up to Carlside and Skiddaw top see our Walks section).

Back at The Larches we’ve been clearing and manuring the vegetable plot, a job I have been putting off for too long. It meant though that we could have the delicious remains of the parsnips – very succulent but they were not as large as I had hoped!

We’ve been delighted to see that the snowdrops are well out already in the garden and on the lane running up to the cottage. These ‘harbingers of Spring’ as Wordsworth called them – have come really early this year and there are even daffodils appearing in the road to Thornthwaite off the A66.

We’ve not seen the red squirrel this time but this morning had a large pheasant strutting around the garden and terraces like a lord of the manor! They’ve been seen much more in the locality in recent months and appear to have escaped from Lord Rochdale’s estate. There are often large numbers of them in the fields near Swinside on the road to Catbells.

The Larches has been full of people and fun over the festive period and though the weather hasn’t been brilliant, there’s been plenty of good walking and good company. The picture above taken on Boxing Day from the route up Cat Bells – a favourite of ours – shows just how intriguing the views in the Lakes can be, whatever the season.

We are always surprised how quiet the Lake District is in the first three months of the new year. Just a few people know about the area’s treasures and attractions in winter, so don’t spread the word too widely!

There may be snow on occasions on high ground – to try out your crampons and ice axe techniques if you wish – and you have the fells to yourself for much of the time, quite often with sun and blue skies.

As the weeks go by after darkest December 21st, the daylight hours expand rapidly, gaining an extra 2¼ hours by mid February. So why not get your friends to join you for an early break at low season rates?

For us it’s also a time for clearing up in the garden and removing stacks of leaves, dead bracken and of course old Christmas trees (see photo opposite of ours being trimmed down for more effective composting).

This year we’ve bought a new ceramic sculpture, High Point, by Gordon Cooke, (see below) which now sits on its plinth below the Belvedere, displayed against the background of an ancient slate gate post, found in the garden.

The two small holes at the gate’s top mimic the larger holes of the stoop stone we have beside the breakfast terrace (photo above). High Point is already starting to look a natural part of the environment and will encourage us to keep the long grass and ferns down over the summer. Its lava flow form reminds us of our daughter Chloe’s time researching the eruptions and pyroclastic flows of the Soufrière Hills on the island of Montserrat.

They’ve got minds of their own, we thought, but that’s not surprising for a couple who’ve come over 3,000 miles from West Africa. Like others though we’ve been keeping the change in their exact domestic arrangements quiet this year, as they are VIPs whom we would not like to see frightened away.

Yes, you’ll have guessed that we are talking about the ospreys, who returned this year to the Derwent Valley in April. Since we built the Belvedere three years ago with its wide range view across the marshes, we’ve been keeping an eye out for the ospreys. In 2008 they moved, conveniently for us, to a site in Dodd Wood which was visible from the Belvedere, though hard to see in any detail as over 1.5 miles distant.

This year they caught the RSPB, Forestry Commission and us by surprise by deciding to set up their nest in a completely new and much closer site at the top of a large dead tree on the other side of the A66. No human help this time with the construction work!

We first got wind of this in May, when we saw a descending hang glider over Thornthwaite, being examined by a circling osprey. The new nest we realised was on the marshes and less than 800 metres away. From the belvedere it’s almost directly in line with the church, Without my binoculars I was not able to check the site out.

We received news however last week from Lee Gretton who was staying at The Larches in August. He confirmed what we thought: “The osprey’s nest is easy to view from the Belvedere. I spent quite a lot of time with the binoculars watching them flying across the marshes”. The photo at the top shows the view through the binoculars of the bare tree with the nest. The site is indicated with a grey magnifying glass at bottom left of the photo.

That was indeed good news, especially for anyone staying at The Larches for the five months, April to August. But there was another nice surprise when we arrived in Chicago. “It was too difficult to send it”, said our son Barney, “but here’s a late birthday present I thought you’d like and could find room for”.

The super colour tinted photo from the turn of the century (see opposite) is of New York’s own Belvedere in Central Park. It will most likely join the Escher Belvedere print we already have in our own fine viewing point at The Larches.

Despite this there have remained parts of the country where internet connectivity has been slow or non-existent. The good news last week is that Cumbria. one of the most disadvantaged areas is to gain from the Government’s plan to provide additional funds for bringing broadband Internet services to rural areas.

From a total pot of £353 million for England and Scotland, €17 million has been allocated for improving access in the most remote parts of the county.

Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt said the investment would ensure 90% of the hardest to reach areas would now be covered (Daily Telegraph 16 August 2011).

This will be excellent for Cumbria, opening up more opportunities for people to engage in the digital economy and to gain the benefit of Internet based public services. No longer the long frustrating delays as you wait for a page to download to your PC!

The Keswick Reminder (18 August 2011) points out there has been a consistent campaign for a better broadband service in the county over recent years.

We are fortunate at The Larches in already having good Internet access because of proximity to Keswick’s main telephone exchange. Visitors to the cottage can use our wifi network in most of the rooms.

Using Google Analytics we’ve looked at the period 1st June 2009 to 2nd August 2011. We have excluded just three days in early May of this year, when we received a hostile attack on the site from hackers and when almost 1600 automated visits were recorded, with hundreds of spam comments.

For this 26 months’ period we have had over 2,250 unique visitors, who have made almost 4,600 visits and had over 15,000 page views of the site and blogs.

Not surprisingly the vast majority of visitors were from the UK with 3648 visits. The USA was next with 488 followed by Canada 55 and Brazil 43. It’s certainly not in the top echelons of websites but nevertheless has been useful and read by a sizeable community, including people staying at the cottage.

What have we written about? We have eleven blog categories and below are listed the numbers in each category. As any one blog can be categorized under more than one heading, the totals in the list naturally exceed 100.

• Environment 57
• The Larches 48
• Local news 40
• Walking and fells 26
• International 22
• Wildlife 18
• Seasons 15
• Belvederes 12
• Recycling 12
• Technology 9
• Culture 6

We have provided details of what is going on at The Larches and locally and have linked this to wider issues affecting the environment, walking, wildlife and the seasons. We have wanted also to give an international perspective. We’d love to know what you think about the balance of subjects covered; and whether there are other areas we need to include or where more coverage would be welcome.

We’ve been delighted to receive pictures, photos and comments from visitors. Many thanks to these contributors. For this special century celebration blog why not tell us your favourite blog posting from The Larches by just clicking in the “Comments” (or “No Comments”) section below? Our blog and photos on the November 2009 floods probably has received the most hits.

This revolution is particularly affecting communications and the transmission of information, shaking up industries like newspapers, publishing, book selling and telecoms. But will all the old ways just wither away? We think not and here’s an example in advertising of what we mean.

We like people to stay at The Larches because it’s a great place with an intriguing garden and belvedere. We tell the world about the cottage and facilities through our website and via the agents. But now we have hit on a simple non-digital idea: a card box for passers-by at the front of the cottage. The photo opposite shows the box by the road with the belvedere in the background at the top of the fellside garden.

Anyone interested in staying here and liking the look of the place can simply take a card with the address, postcode and booking details. A blended solution, mixing the old with the new!

And what’s so special about the card box? Made of recycled wood, it has a 20 mms thick perspex block at the front, enabling the cards to be seen but crucially kept set back from a possible wet front. [The close up photo below shows the rain on the lid.]

The lid lifts up to enable you to get your hand in to take the card; and there is a 15 mms deep wooden block above the sloping roof, which sheds the rain away from the hinge and area where there might be leakage.

Screwed to the gate post, the back base is made from waste oak flooring, with glue channels at the rear to allow the rain to drain down behind. All very practical and environmentally sound! We will have to explore patenting it.

PS We’re not forgetting the digital world completely! Just type “Lakeland belvedere” into Google maps and you’ll get full directions, telephone etc for The Larches. And if you have stayed at the cottage, you can write a review.

You can click on twitter.com/thelarches to get our latest tweets.

We’re also looking at the use of QR (Quick Response) coding with these cards. QR barcodes are easily created and can provide information (URL, location, contact number etc), which can be read instantly by a smartphone.

Then a short while later there’s a knock on the front door and our two friends Ann and Elizabeth from Cockermouth are there in time for an evening meal. They had been on the A66 on the way back from a day out. “Have you seen the light out there?” they asked. “It’s been so amazingly clear as we travelled west. Can’t remember anything like this!”

With this endorsement what could I do but rush up the fellside with the camera before the light had gone? The photo below is taken from on top of the sedum roof of the Belvedere, with the Seldom Seen hamlet in the foreground and the shadows cast by the westering sun picking out the sinews and structure of the Skiddaw massif.

The ospreys have nested on the marshes this year instead of in Dodd wood and their nest is just visible from the Belvedere in the sunlit fields on the other side of the A66. Tell us what you think of the photo!

For several years we have watched as the coping stones on the top of the left front garden wall have slipped further downhill and earth has dropped into the road. Now the containing wall has been rebuilt by Rob and looks set good for another twenty five years. (See photo above).

One advantage here is that the front of the wall has now been pushed back towards the house about four inches. It may not sound much, but it gives that little bit more to the road width when people are parked outside The Larches. Lorries and waste removal vehicles will find it that much easier to reach the top of the ravine road.

Two years ago I promised myself I would cut back every year the high ferns on the steep bank above the large ground floor back bedroom. I failed last year but this June I managed to avoid the rain to get the work done – and before Midsummer Day. It helps to bring more light into the house and gives a better view of wildlife and birds.

Although we have not seen the red squirrels in the garden for several weeks, there have been recent sightings 100 metres down the road and in the copse opposite the house, where the footpath leads down to Thornthwaite Church.

Less regulation? More street parties? Less public services? More self help? No national forests? More competition in the NHS? Less weight watching? Smaller populations in prisons and psychiatric hospitals? There’s no end to the list.

When you come to think about it, well …. it’s just embarrassing! No wonder thirty learned professors, who are panel members of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, plan to resign because of their Chairman’s decision (Guardian, 19 June) to make the ‘Big Society’ a subject for serious research and grants.

The Government plans shortly to announce what the Big Society really means in its White Paper on Public Services Reform. I’ m not expecting any great revelations.

However we know the Coalition Government is introducing cuts to public services on an unprecedented scale at every level. These will affect all of us, however hard councils, voluntary bodies and others try to introduce efficiencies.

Back on the ground in Seldom Seen last week it all seemed suddenly clear. The arrival of the Big Society means I must now give up all hope of the water gully on the steep ravine road above The Larches ever being cleared by the Council. It was a prospect I’d quietly nursed since the November 2009 floods.

The Government’s answer to our local community’s problem is simple. If a job needs doing, do it yourself! Which is why in the photo below, I’m at the end of a hard day’s work with a scythe and hoe having cleared thick undergrowth, earth and a blocked pipe to keep rainwater from flooding down the road. Tough luck though if you are too old or infirm to do this or have kids to look after.

Does it matter? Well in winter’s freezing conditions the road outside The Larches is like a steep ice rink, which can easily land you with a broken arm or ankle. You need a hospital? Simple. Just get on your bike!