In the second of the ‘Challenge Zoë’ activities for The Kendal Courier I had a golf lesson at Carus Green, Kendal’s new golf course.  Here’s the article that originally appeared in the magazine. Oh, the sweet thwack as the club hit the ball which soared 100 yards through the air towards the...

Afternoon Tea is such an English tradition and some of the best places to try it are not the posh London hotels but in the country villages around the UK. And of course, you can have coffee and cake any time of the day! Here are five tantalising Tea Rooms...

In January this year I was invited to take part in 6 Challenges by Dan Brown of The Kendal Courier, the newly relaunched local magazine for Kendal and the south Lake District, Cumbria.  For each edition I agreed to do an activity that would push me out of my comfort zone,...

Author Barry McCann is a writer and expert on the horror genre, tradition and folk tales.  He appears regularly on BBC Radio sharing quirky tales of mystery and imagination in Cumbria and Lancashire.  Here are some of his favourite folklore stories from the Lake District. The shires and counties of...

“The first thing which I remember as an event in life was being taken by my nurse to the brow of Friar’s Crag on Derwentwater.”  Victorian art critic and philanthropist John Ruskin described this view as one of the three most beautiful in Europe.  Friar’s Crag is a one of the most...

“I wandered lonely as a shroud …”. I know, not right, but I’d just told a friend we were filming along the ancient Coffin Road from Grasmere to Rydal and he came out with it… In olden times, the Coffin Route was used by locals carrying the dead from Rydal...

“She was probably a very fecund witch who produced lots of wild, attractive and subversive daughters, scandalising the locals and creating mayhem amongst the farmers and their sons …”  One of many wonderfully imaginative local legends given for Long Meg and her Daughters.  Few people realise that what is said...