25th July 2008 – Crummock Water & Buttermere
At Crummock Water, having parked on the roadside, we carried cooking equipment onto the picnic area by the lakeside, busy with day-trippers enjoying inflated dinghies and paddling up to their thighs. We cooked and ate porridge with honey and washed it down with Japanese green tea. They had never tasted so good.
Crummock Water is deeper, larger and noticeably colder than Loweswater and we agreed on a lesser swim but one that took us round the small island that sits off-shore.
Having digested and lazed in the sunshine a while, we rounded the island to discover a bank of raised rock floor which allowed us to stand up or appear to sit on the water’s surface. Swimming beneath the surface showed fallen boughs of trees scattered like debris. In the shallows I reached down and picked up a small stone whose shape echoed the line of hills opposite descending to the water line. A landscape fractal lain dormant under the water, now brought to the light of day.
We packed our things and drove the short distance to Buttermere. By now we knew whatever happened, our third swim of the day would be the shortest. We found a shingle beach to walk in from. A black and white cat, very friendly and with no obvious means of support, strolled up, rolling in the shingle, seeking attention. A flock of Canada geese landed on the water with a flourish. Our swim, brief as it was, was in full view of Haystacks. The cloud had thickened – moving towards rain and thunder as predicted. We walked in but the water didn’t deepen and we swam with weeds stroking our ankles, always able to stand up. After the depths of Loweswater, this felt rather uncomfortable. That surprised me somewhat and I longed for the knowledge of hidden depths beneath me.
After drying off, we returned to Buttermere village and a decent pint of beer before the drive home, meeting the rain at Thirlmere, discussing saxophone techniques, listening to Art Pepper live in Copenhagen in 1981 and Frank Zappa’s Gumbo Variations from 1969. Truly amazing saxophony
