The sunshine may have come late over the horizon, making bed seem a cosy place to stay today, but when it hit the curtains, it exerted a wake up call with the retinal kick of a supernova.  The world outside danced with frost glitter on every surface and reflected a cloudless sky in countless sparks of blue and silver. You just had to get up and get going (with a short pause to don thermals and fleece lined leggings)

Part of plunging into the water, when it is this still, is the chase for the waking dream. To float in the place where reality and reflection mingle. Which is more real – the Skiddaw you can see with your own eyes in the distance, white cold and untouchable or the Skiddaw you swim through and feel, in the bite of the water, with your own skin? If I climbed the earthy Skiddaw the maximum effect I would have on it on might be a line of footprints. When I swim in the watery Skiddaw I break the whole into shards, mixing the landscape colours, snow white, next to sky indigo, next to cream reed, in my round rim of ripples. Liquid and light.

Along the sides of the pontoon though the water just reflects the winter-gold of the sun in pale fiery flickers. The water must still be a few degrees warmer than the air temperature but the backwash of light on the back of my head is relatively warm. It’s deceptively homely after the icing cool wider view. But a few more strokes and the cold-clock starts to slow down its ticking. Time to leave.

As I walked back up the hard an elderly man turned up with his camera to catch the moment too, so we shared a companiable hot chocolate whilst he told me of his latest photographic holiday in Cuba.  It was a strange conversation as I can think of few greater contrasts than the feeling of remote stillness in view before us and his description of the heated bustle of humanity bathed in tropical humidity.