Sixty Days — and the Lake District I Didn’t Understand Yet
Three days into building the Instagram campaign. Sixty posts counting down to Beatrix's birthday — each one needs the right image, the right words, the right order. So many things to do. I've been overwhelmed at moments; this is a project sitting on top of other projects. But I'm happy to say it's coming along quite nicely — and actually I feel like we're a little ahead of schedule.
That is, until I found a gap. A whole section of the release campaign that wasn't there. So there's that.
The research has been the best part. Reading more about her life and the Lake District makes me want to go back. I went once — autumn, I think, the fells had turned — and I walked around Tarn Hows. I remember thinking: is this place real? are my eyes deceiving me? It was out of this world. Too beautiful. Too scenic. Too exactly the colour it should be. It didn't seem like it belonged on earth.
Tarn Hows as I remembered it. Photograph via Wikimedia Commons.
I didn't know at the time that she had bought it. That Tarn Hows was hers — purchased in 1930, then given to the National Trust so no one could take it apart. I was just a visitor who thought it was beautiful. I didn't know I was standing in her work.
Working on this now and looking back at that — I couldn't help but feel a sense of wonder and serendipity and gratefulness to her vision. Who kept it. Who preserved it for all of us.
More days to go. Back to work.