Ullswater

Gowbarrow

It was a gorgeous day. After this morning’s activities (below) I set off on my bike. I had wondered about having my first swim of the year but wasn’t sure it felt right so thought I might try to get to Gowbarrow. For most proper cyclists this wouldn’t be a big deal but I don’t possess Lycra or particularly happy knees and I have a basket for picking up useful odds and sods on my way. There will never be another opportunity. It isn’t a road I’d dream of cycling along normally because of traffic. What a blissful dream. I was passed by a tractor, just a few cars, several cyclists (Lycra types), and quite a few speeding butterflies. I could only hear the lake, waves lapping, geese calling, woody the woodpecker, I saw a flycatcher (I think), heard oyster catchers and watched a tumbling lone lapwing. There were the soft yellows of primroses, deep blues of fresh violets and white carpets of wood anemones, bluebells were emerging, peppered with stichwort, Dorothy Wordsworth’s ‘rabbit-toothed flower’. After I’d huffed and puffed up a few hills I began to think, stuff Gowbarrow, any lone daffodil will do ... a bit further on, anything yellow will do. I persevered and eventually made it and fell off my bike at Gowbarrow. As suspected the daffodils had largely gone over after all this wonderful weather especially as they had been in their prime when I last saw them before the lockdown. Okay, so it’s not quite the 15th but it’s near enough ... https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2961235 ... and it’s probably the most like it was in their day as it will ever be.

On my way back I called in the store at Pooley for milk. It was such a pleasure to be able to go in there rather than have to go into town and queue. It feels dissonant for it to be so beautiful at such a time.

Extra - as you can tell, I’m not in Basel as planned celebrating my great niece, Sofia’s first birthday. Instead, Sofia conducted her first zoom video conference covering four countries and three languages. We needed a Babel fish. I had made her a card with hand gathered and felted herdwick wool. Thankfully she’s not too discriminating. At one point her parents were off screen and she was sat there like the queen about to address the nation. Within the space of a few minutes she gesticulated, looked bemused, quizzical, curious, bored, giggled, laughed, looked happy, anxious, fed up, whinged, cried and ate cake. Welcome to the rest of your life, Sofia x