Time Enough in the Clough

Farfield Mill was built by the Clough River for waterpower so, from our holiday home it was just a hop down an ivy lonnin, a skip over a narrow bridge and clamber over a wall stile to a footpath running through the fields alongside the riverbank. Because it hasn’t rained in over a week the limestone rock lay exposed like the tines of a carved comb laid across the river, each creating a low dam against the flow. Sunlight caught every place where there was a spill over the sills in eye-watering sparkles. Alders and oaks lined up along the edge to dip roots into the quieter pools, and to the left the bulk of the Howgills’ lay, in Wainwright’s words, like ‘a herd of sleeping elephants’, sunbathing under an African blue sky.
Somewhere upstream there was surely going to be a place where the geology formed a good swimming hole. Of course there was, and after lunch I went back with my cossie. My sister and the dog coming too, for the entertainment value.
 
This limestone bed-rock is ancient, 330million years old, formed by the countless coral creatures whose hard carapaces sank to the bottom of a shallow tropical sea. At intervals silt divided the layers and eons later cataclysmic earth movements upended the beds, which must be the edges you can see now.  Somehow, the fact that this stone was wrought out of life makes it feel even more venerable than the earliest rocks, the Skiddaw slates of my home waters. I guess, the Organic presupposes mortality and the counting of years, full of meaning, whilst  Inorganic existence holds no such consideration.
 
 Anyway, I slid in between two of these grandaddy limestone rib-bones into the slightly peaty water and despite due care, discovered how extremely slippery the algal layer covering the submerged stone was. The temperature was icy, but algae know it’s Spring time! 
My sister felt that the show was becoming more enjoyable every minute.
 
Then, after a few strokes I realised I had forgotten my gloves and my fingers were aching so hard I had to get out, put them on and then wince carefully back in again. 
Action replay. Better and better!
 
It was a good hole, although corralled by fossil reefs, a mite small, so, after few more widths back and forth, taking into account the downstream current, I thought ‘sunshine is the better part of valour’ and got out - to find that a row of flags previously planted beside the path marked an after-school cross-country course. And, as my sister pointed out, the time was 15.45, so my drying and re-dressing would be in direct competition with the first racers, even now perhaps, crossing the adjoining field. Ha. Ha.
 
You can go ough sisters.