‘Fair seed time …’

If ever there was a Wordsworthian moment this was it … beneath Skiddaw’s ‘lofty height’ … 

From The Prelude - William Wordsworth 

All shod with steel,
We hiss'd along the polish'd ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chace
And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn,
The Pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle; with the din,
Meanwhile, the precipices rang aloud,
The leafless trees, and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron, while the distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars,
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.

       Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the image of a star
That gleam'd upon the ice: and oftentimes
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks, on either side,
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion; then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopp'd short, yet still the solitary Cliffs
Wheeled by me, even as if the earth had roll'd
With visible motion her diurnal round;
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watch'd
Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep.

I set off on my way to see A’s new home at St.Bees and stopped here on my way to get my spikes on and have a walk in the snow. The kids were having a whale of a time and the sound of their skates was astonishing. Strangely, it reminded me of hearing the distant haunting sound of trains in the tunnels of the Tube from when I was younger.

At St.Bees I walked up the cliff to Tomlin and the old lookout post and then walked along the beach a little before dropping in on A’s for a cuppa and a tour of their new place.