The best laid schemes o' mice an' men

As largely independent travelers, we have always been pretty darn lucky. In spite of all the things that can and do go wrong whilst traveling, we have hardly experienced any disruption in our plans and in fact, we have been blessed with a large amount of serendipity that just cannot be planned for. I'm not talking about misplaced luggage, missed connections or cancelled flights. We have had our fair share of those inconveniences. But even without benefit of travel agents and tour operators, we have been able to, on our own behalf, regroup, reconnoiter and carry on as planned.

Denali

For the most part, things that can really jettison well-conceived plans - freakish weather, strikes, war, foot and mouth disease - have been more like hiccups rather than deal-breakers. With regards to the weather, I usually like to leave enough play in our itinerary to allow for bad rain and visibility. For instance, we allowed four days in Denali National Park to maximize our chance of seeing the mountain in its full splendor. The mountain produces its own weather system and the peak of Denali is only visible about 20% of the time! We saw it fully or partially all four days while we were in the park. But by the time we left on the train for Fairbanks, the mountain was completely socked in with weather. It was like it wasn't even there.

One time it did seem like my luck had run out. It was the year my sister and I planned a trip to England and Scotland for our birthdays around a wedding in Scotland. It was a fairly complicated itinerary. We would start in London and take in the Proms, a play at Shakespeare's Globe and scour every antique market in the city. Then we would rent a car and visit as many of the famous gardens of Kent and Sussex as we could before heading north through the Midlands to the Lake District. The highlight of our stay in Cumbria would be a pilgrimage to Beatrix Potter's Hill Top. Onward to York and Castle Howard, with some hiking in the Yorkshire Dales and along Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland before crossing into Scotland. Tea in Mackintosh's Glasgow and on to Edinburgh for The Tattoo, The Fringe and a wedding and then back to London lickity split on the Royal Scotsman.

Hotels and cottages were booked. Our car was rented. Non-refundable performance, train and airline tickets purchased. And then disaster struck with an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in the UK. Extremely infectious and easily transmittable, all of the National Trust pathways were summarily closed to tourists. Farm visits were stopped and many of the houses and properties were either closed altogether or put on very limited opening schedules.

For the most part, our plans were sublimely unaffected. Except for Hill Top. It would now be closed on every day of the five we had set aside in Cumbria. To badly paraphrase both Robbie Burns and John Steinbeck, "The best laid plans of dormice and men ..."

We were devastated. My sister and I have always been hopeless Potter fans and Hill Top was like our Mecca. We had always hoped to see it together. To go to the Lake District without seeing it was unthinkable. But to undo all of our reservations and planning to accommodate the single new opening day was daunting. We talked about skipping the Lake District altogether and re-visiting the Highlands in Scotland or the Norfolk Broads. But what if the disease spread and more areas were affected? Even worse, what if the disease was contained and Hill Top reopened and we weren't there?


We decided just to leave our trip as planned. Roll the dice as it were. And in the end by the time we left for London the disease had not been contained and when we periodically checked the trusty Trust website along the way, the quarantine schedule stood unchanged.

On the fateful day we had set aside to visit Hill Top, we decided to go to Near Sawry anyway and just walk the village streets in the footsteps of Beatrix Potter. We strolled over to Hill Top and planned to "lick the windows" as the French would say. As we approached the cottage, we couldn't believe our eyes. The front door was wide open. Maybe they are cleaning it and they would let us take a peek inside. But it turned out that they were open for business! When asked how this was possible, the docent simply replied, "We just decided to open today this week instead of the Trust designated day."

What? What if we had turned our itinerary upside down to accommodate the web-posted hours? What if we had skipped the Lake District altogether? But thankfully and serendipitously, we didn't. Instead of looking a gift horse in the (foot and) mouth, we quickly flashed our Royal Oak membership cards at her and stepped inside Mecca ... where we were rewarded with views of all the furniture and incidentals Beatrix painted in her tales. Including Mr. McGregor's garden! And just like that, our luck had changed.

I tell this "happily ever after" story before I tell you another very sad Christmas story. To be continued ...