Welcome to Joanne’s Journal by Joanne Hunter, Co-director of Grasmere Gingerbread®
For years customers have urged me to write a behind-the-scenes ‘blog’ about Grasmere Gingerbread® and Grasmere itself - valley, village and lake - as it was the magical combination of all three geographical features that stirred local poet William Wordsworth to describe it as ‘the loveliest spot that man hath ever found’.
After living and working most of my life in this truly special part of the UNESCO Lake District - and as a hopeless fan and advocate of our lauded local Poet Laureate’s remarkable Romantic literature - who am I to disagree?
But first things first: in all good faith I cannot and will not call my humble Lakeland sketch a ‘blog’. The word is such an ugly-sounding portmanteau without any soulful appeal or soaring aesthetic. This contrived, grim noun should never be anywhere near romantic Grasmere. Therefore, in homage to Dorothy Wordsworth - whose brilliant journals recorded her daily life inside and outside the Dove Cottage home she shared with her much more famous brother - I warmly welcome you to my inaugural Joanne’s Journal.
Every now and then, when the mood takes me or there is something I want to share with the world, I shall reach for my quill (aka computer keyboard) to rattle out my thoughts. In advance, please forgive me if I ramble on or disappear into flights of fancy but when you live amidst some of the most stunning scenery in the world it is difficult to keep your feet on the ground and your head out of the clouds.
From spectacular equinoxal sunrises and sunsets over Helm Crag overlooking our happy valley to Grasmere Lake shimmering in a summer heatwave, it is almost impossible not to be emotionally overwhelmed by William Wordsworth’s ‘celestial light’ and ‘thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears’.
Whilst his profound tome Intimations of Immortality mourns the adult loss of childhood wonder at the natural world, I can still easily weep with joy at what I see, hear and feel all around me in the place I am grateful to call home.
Of course, like Dorothy Wordsworth whose journals painstakingly chronicled mundane domesticity, illness and physical frailty, readers of my previous e-newsletters will know that I too suffer from debilitating health conditions - Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and Postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) - and so there will be times when I need to share how they impact upon my personal life and prompting melancholic feelings about the arbitrary nature of life.
Finally, there’s my working life at Grasmere Gingerbread®. Since taking over the business with my husband Andrew in 2000 it has dominated nearly every waking moment. As anyone who has ever managed their own company will know, it can be the most rewarding and frustrating ‘job’ in the world. No two days - let alone hours - are the same and after every high there is an almost inevitable low.
But despite all the commercial challenges, arduous administration and sheer hard graft that goes into keeping Grasmere Gingerbread® on the road, I realise that it was my good fortune - perhaps even destiny - to inherit the mantle of our great Victorian founder Sarah Nelson who overcame prejudice and personal tragedy to invent Grasmere Gingerbread® in 1854 and deliver a unique culinary sensation to the world.
Moreover, whenever ‘I lie in vacant or in pensive mood’ I know that despite my body letting me down more and more, having seen my three children grow up into healthy young adults and spread their wings I am more fortunate than Sarah whose son and two daughters died from terrible incurable 19th century diseases.
Nevertheless, despite the grief she must have suffered and lifelong hardship that caused her to die from ‘sheer exhaustion’ at the age of 88 in 1904, whenever I think of the unique gustatory pleasure she has given to millions of people ‘my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils’ that every spring burst into bloom overlooking her grave just yards from her 19th century Church Cottage home - now the world-famous Grasmere Gingerbread Shop.
Until next time
Love
Joanne Hunter
Co-director of Grasmere Gingerbread®
