Bowscale Tarn is on the swim circle and therefore (roughly) the same distance from Blea Tarn – the centre – as all the other tarns. Yet try as we may it felt like we were going to some sort of extremity. True it was the furthest north but there was an emotional distance here that transcended previous swims.
That intuition was confirmed when we arrived to find that the tarn had retreated behind a frozen screen and would refuse, for the moment, its part in the performance.
While I mused on the way natural processes had conspired to cause Bowscale Tarn to ‘opt-out’ of our project, I had become aware of our determination to press on round the circle and this feeling became lodged in an image of Paul’s posts – an image of the posts back through the months at various tarns – arranged in a way that each was almost superimposed on earlier posts – I saw them forging forward round the circle.
When I got back I started work on the image.
