The Lakes (2)

Long sandy beaches fringed by dunes with their silvery crest of marram, headlands of ancient volcanic rock, low, earthy cliffs topped by ragged pines, and the estuary’s sleek sandbanks and sinuous channels — these are the shorelines I wander daily. They have become part of my inner landscape.

But there are other shores which lodge in my memory and feed my imagination, the shores of the lakes, waters, tarns and streams of the Lake District. And so, for this post, that is where I remain.

For some time I have stayed once, sometimes twice, a year at Glenthorne, a Quaker guest house in Grasmere, just a few minutes walk up the Easedale Road. I was there just a month ago, when snow lay on the fells and the virus was a dim rumour.

The fells to the north of Grasmere

*

I am walking along the shore of the slate-grey lake southwards, the snowy ridge of Heron Pike and Great Rigg over to the west and the modest heights of Loughrigg before me. I pass the boathouse, one of my favourite things to sketch…..later I do a watercolour painting.

The boathouse on Grasmere

As I approach the southern end of the lake, the brightness gives way to a sudden shower. I stand on the shore and watch the swathe of rain sweep across the water….and behold a rainbow wonderfully, perfectly, spanning the lake.

‘My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky’

And a quick sketch on the same spot, roughly, from my journal.

*

I dip into my notebooks for sketches and scraps of memories.

I first went to Glenthorne with the Quaker Meeting from Wakefield for our
‘weekend away’. I climbed Helm Grag — topped by the Lion and the Lamb — for the
first time and discovered Alcock Tarn, hidden in the steep hillside below Heron
Pike. And I walked with an elderly lady, Josephine, along the road to the lake and took her
out in a rowing boat, round the island and back, her bony fingers trailing in the water. Then we had ice-cream from the little café.

A year or so later I returned on my own, in a damp and dark February. The
visit did occasion a couple of poems, however. One day — it happened to be my
birthday — I climbed up behind Allan Bank and on to the summit of Silver How
intending to circle the ridges surrounding the Easedale valleys. From Silver
How to Blea Rigg involves crossing a somewhat featureless, boggy mile or two.
It was here that the mist came down. I tried to express the contrasting
emotions walking in the hills can give rise to. With apologies to Mr.Eliot.

‘In the mountains, there you feel free.’

….and you are right, Marie, you do,
the self abstracted as the path unwinds
before you, every turn an invitation,
each cairn leading you upward
and away from all you’ve left behind.
That sturdy crag steepling skywards
stiffens your spine with resolution.
The scoop of glacial valleys
inspires you to an elemental purging.
Your footsteps thus ennobled
achieve the rocky summit where you stand,
eyes narrowing on the horizon,
your soul released in pristine mountain air,
high on infinity, drunk on endless sky!

But do the route in louring cloud, Marie,
(as I did on my last birthday,
sixty-four and duped by early sun)
you find yourself immured in doubt,
the track before you like an inhibition,
behind you like a cell-door shut.
You see only the blots inside your eye
and listen to your leather boots
gathering grit, sloshing through sucking bog.
The mist’s damp fingers on your cheek
press you to unanswerable questions.
You peer into the blank abyss
and hear, Marie, the drumbeat of your heart:
“Do not stop too long, oh, do not stop too long.”

I did, incidentally, continue through the gloom and return by the ridge
above Far Easedale, descending by Helm Crag.

A page from my notebook. Silver How

The path up to Easedale Tarn is a well worn one. Not only the lure of that sudden revelation of the lake itself but the excitement of walking alongside the frothing spate of Sourmilk Ghyll, “a broad stream of snow” in Dorothy Wordsworth’s words, attracts thousands of ramblers a year. And for many people it is enough to take in the quiet beauty of the lake and go back down again, or cross over to Far Easedale and return that way.

It is, though, a grand excursion to press on to the head of the valley, scramble up by the waterfalls upstream and gain the ridge, look at the view from Sergeant Man then return by the multiple hill crests above Far Easedale. It was on this walk that I once took a short detour, crossing the stream above the waterfalls and following a narrow path in the shadow of Belles Knot. Here, in a secluded bowl of the hills, I came across the little blue teardrop on the map, Codale Tarn. I loved the quiet, secret stillness of the place and later wrote this poem about it.

Tarn

lone syllable
stark as thorn
soft as yearn

turns you from the dotted path
to follow contours
shallowing into the hill’s lap

where it lies
curled foetal
its dark thread trail
ing back umbilical
to a stain in folds of fell
fading among mist-wraiths

you hear its silence
mark the nuance
between sound and distance
pitch of water over stones
wingbeat of unearthly wind
raven’s doorcreak

you gaze at its cool
glaze how still
it seems until
you feel an undercurrent pulse
constant slippage below
sliding panes of light

its glass eye
cold as day
drains the sunless air
to a socket of pale sky
where you wait on the edge
gathering a reflection

that scatters
when a wilful breeze
shatters the surface

turns you from this brink
manship lets tarn shrink
back to a blue blot on the map

The February of 2019 seems a world away…’midsummer February’ as I wrote in my notebook when I arrived at Glenthorne. ‘Warmth, harebell sky, a fine web of mist hanging from the hillsides,’ as I trod the path below Silver How to Elterwater. Returning by Loughrigg Tarn I saw a woman swimming in the clear, cold water. I envied her. Perhaps one day… And on Loughrigg Fell after a steep but short ascent, a snatch of conversation worthy of Alan Bennett. A middle-aged man, his finger stabbing away at a large map flapping in the breeze. ‘We’re at this point, here Vera, look!’ Vera is pointing in the opposite direction. ‘That’s the way, Harold. Use your eyes. Why are you always wanting to veer off!’

Another day of sun….making my way to Far Easedale, passing a cottage with a little table outside. On it was a tin with a little hand-written sign, ‘Maisie’s Flapjack.£1’ .I paid my money and took a piece of flapjack which I ate for my lunch in the valley, sitting on a large rock. Then a wondrous spectacle. ‘Sitting there,’ says my notebook, ‘ I heard the sharp hollering of shepherds marshalling their dogs — they were bringing the sheep down for lambing, hundreds of them flowing down the valley like a tide. Up the fellside two dogs scurrying back and forth cajoling a few strays down from the rocky outcrops.’ They swept past me as I finished my flapjack.

Here are some little watercolour sketches from that ‘midsummer February’. Looking up towards Silver How; tree in a rock; Far Easedale Ghyll; Brimmer Head Farm.

*

‘The rainbow comes and goes…’ Well, the rainbow has gone and I leave the shore of Grasmere to make my way up the path skirting the base of Loughrigg until Rydal Water comes into view. This time I will take the high road, the path that leads to the old slate mines, the most impressive being a huge cavern hacked out of the hillside.

I go in and poke around, test the echo, take a few photos and then walk down through the woods to the shore of Rydal Water. I sit on a bench overlooking the water and start a sketch with my fineliner pen. Half way through, it starts to rain, so I curse quietly and repair to the Badger Bar. Here, sitting by the open fire, I finish my drawing accompanied by a fine pint of Badger Pale Ale.

It is time to leave and, indeed, to close this blog. Not before this poem though. An earlier time, and I am standing under the trees by the water’s edge at the eastern tip of Rydal Water. It is November, the leaves are falling and the hawthorn berries and rose hips glow red in the shadows.

The Shore

Along the shore of the lake — steel grey
in this darkening — small waves lapse
and spread like fingers smoothing
a child’s hair. The sky swells and contracts,
running ink into the wood until
a sudden gust sends leaves spinning down
pale yellow, and a red berry, loosening,
drops, bobs on the surface.

From the cover of trees you might observe
a greying man in stout boots, buttoned
from the wind, content with his own company.
You could imagine a firelit interior with
mementos on the shelf, someone
sitting in the other chair, perhaps.

Yet here I am, at the edge, feet
in shifting shale, leaning over to see
the child who’s staring back, lips moving
towards words, eyes squinting to make
something out. Me, bending down to scoop
a scarlet berry from the water.