Black Combe

A magical day up Black Combe. And needing to keep up my continuing professional development as a graduate of the school of bonkers I have had it in mind for ages to head back to Black Combe - a fell I haven't walked for many years, partly because you would struggle to find anywhere further away since living in the north Lakes. I have thought about it, headed in the general direction, got part way, given up, gone somewhere closer, or not at all or dismissed it as daft as there is so much possibility closer to home. So, today, waking (and returning) to thick fog, as forecast, I decided to get going and go for it.

It felt like another country. As I headed up I sunbathed and the air was warm with the smell of wood smoke and spring, the light glistened across to the Isle of Man which was floating like Avalon.  By the time I reached the snow, I had all my layers on and looked back to see I had climbed above the cloud level and felt as though I was in an aeroplane looking across a cloud sea with the distant snow topped  island summits of Snaefell,  the Scottish Southern Uplands, across to Ingleborough and the Lakeland Summits looking very grand closer to.

I was thinking how like twins Black Combe and Skiddaw are, born together with the same parentage but growing up and emerging into the world distinctively separate by way of their different experiences ... one the introvert, the other the extrovert. Black Combe the loner, the outlier, sea lover and not as frequented. Skiddaw, the northern leader of the gang, landlocked, demanding attention, always busy.

I was also wanting to get down to Norman Nicholson country which has been tugging at me since posting 'The Pot Geranium' and coming across the following perfect poem posted in WalkAndrewWalk's journal ....

Sea to the West - Norman Nicholson

When the sea’s to the west
The evenings are one dazzle -
You can find no sign of water.
Sun upflows the horizon;
Waves of shine
Heave, crest, fracture,
Explode on the shore;
The wide day burns.
In the incandescent mantle of the air.

Once, fifteen,
I would lean on handlebars,
Staring into the flare,
Blinded by looking,
Letting the gutterings and sykes of light
Flood into my skull.

Then, on the stroke of bedtime,
I’d turn to the town,
Cycle past purpling dykes
To a brown drizzle
Where black-scum shadows
Stagnated between backyard walls.
I pulled the warm dark over my head
Like an eiderdown.

Yet in that final stare when I
(Five times, perhaps, fifteen)
Creak protesting away -
The sea to the west,
The land darkening -
Let my eyes at the last be blinded
Not by the dark
But by the dazzle.