Lakeland Dipper

I’m losing my marbles. I thought my friend was coming up this weekend. As midnight approached I began to worry and texted only to discover it’s next weekend!
Then this morning I broke my favourite mug (I have a bad habit of breaking things I am attached to). I decided to run the gauntlet and go to Keswick market on the off chance the potters mother was selling his work there which I know she has done before. No joy so I consoled myself with a liquorice ice cream, did a quick shop and headed for the peace of Thirlmere.

Then I realised that I’d forgotten my camera.
So, imagine, if you will, climbing the steep path to Harrop Tarn which greeted me with a shimmer and crowds of foxgloves waving like pennants on the boats at a summer regatta. There was a family at my usual place. Unheard of. I was irritated for just a nanosecond but watched the little boy being shown how to fish and was reminded of G who would tickle trout up here as a youngster. I left them to it and climbed on to an old haunt where I knew no one ever gets to. I had to remember my route and was soon twenty feet above the pools and my heart quickened with delight (before the thought of how cold it would be). Bouncing down through moss full of deceivingly beautiful glistening sundew about to flower I clambered across the rocks to a sunny slab. Dispensing with the thought of hauling myself into my wetsuit I jumped in (well, not exactly) and was soon looking up at the wet rockface stuccoed with butterwort and liverworts and the waterfall sparkled and danced around me in the bright sunlight.