Crummock Water

I had to be creative getting to Keswick this morning. The roads were jammed by festival goers leaving Kendal Calling. The traffic queue was solid all the way from Penrith to Clifton.
I was heading for the slate shop on the present hunt but it was closed so I bravely went to look at dresses. I saw some that looked nice on the hangers but as soon as I put them on they were transformed into looking like something a cat dragged in. I had passed my half hour boiling point and could feel my usual shopping panic kick in and had to work hard not to break into a sprint to get away ... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7FPELc1wEvk
All was not lost though, I was delighted to find an Einaudi cd in Oxfam as I somehow seem to have lost the one I had.
Then I headed up to Honister to check out slate stuff there and having got that far I decided to go down to Crummock for a swim as I don’t think I’ve been that way since before covid. By the time I got there I hated living in the Lake District, the traffic from Kendal Calling, the drifting around in Keswick, heaving with Convention goers ... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nsBByTiKfyY, hopeless driving on the pass with people in 4x4’s that can’t actually drive them ... oh dear ... I’m ranting ...

However, once I got to Lanthwaite and wandered along the path to the lake I was softening a little. It was full of flowering meadowsweet, salad burnet, knapweed, betony and mint. Grasmoor loomed ... such a wall of rock, a beast of a Fell rising straight up on the other side with a windsurfer valiantly thrashing back and forth. The wind was really whipping up and I wasn’t at all sure about swimming but I had the beach to myself so I went for it and it was lovely in.

On my way back I called into Sainsbury’s and bumped into my old neighbours (no, not those ones, thank goodness). They would like to move back to the old village but just can’t afford to.