A sojourn to the Lakes

I listened, motionless and still; 

And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

William Wordsworth

 

 

We are back from a week to the beautiful Lake District, welcomed back to Hazel Cottage by streams of swifts careering over the house and garden.  When we arrived at our very remote cottage we were rather charmed by the swallows swooping over us so it seemed quite right that the swifts welcomed us back home again.  This was my first visit to the Lakes and it served to prove that no photograph can ever do the majesty and scale of the mountains and hills and lakes justice.  I took hundreds of photos and although they remind me of the holiday they cannot really show what it was like - especially as I never managed to get a single swallow in a picture, even though they were always with us!

 

Before we went to the Lakes, I wanted to have seen a few of the lakes and mountains, as well as seen something of the lives of William Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter and what had inspired them.  We visited two of Wordsworth's houses, and saw his grave and some of the places that had inspired him, but it was Beatrix Potter who was ever present.  We went to her house at Hill Top of course, and saw her beautiful paintings in the Beatrix Potter gallery.  Her influence on the lakes however is immeasurable - the thousands of acres of farmland she donated to the National Trust which is still being farmed to this day, and the remote farms (including the one we stayed at) where she encouraged farmers to open their cottages to visitors at a time of financial depression. 

 

 

She was all around us it seems, and when I was surrounded by the countryside she loved so much, and saw the rabbits in the fields and the swifts swirling around our heads, it felt as if she was there, ready to paint he scene!

 

In the week we were there, I never tired of the views we saw, even the view outside our cottage was inspirational.  Now we are back home and planning nice things for the next few months to get over the shock of going back to work on Monday...

 

 

Swereee swereee!

We've been waiting for the swifts to return.  We've heard rumours that they are back and even heard a very faint sound very high in the sky.  Did I imagine that?  Was it a distant finch or a hoarse sparrow?  Sitting in a pub garden a couple of weeks ago, a friend said "Ah the swifts are back again!".  We turned to look but saw nothing.  Spring has taken its time this year and this last week has been rather cold and wet again.  To use a local word, I even felt completely shrammed* the other day and hid under a blanket.

Then, this morning, the sun was out again, the air was warmer and over my head with a swereee swereee, darting low over the houses were the swifts! 

Swifts always signal the start of summer to me.  These remarkable birds migrate between Africa and Europe every year, coming back to us in April or May and leaving again about August.  They have very short feet, as they rarely settle on the ground, mostly flying or clinging to vertical surfaces.  Even into Medieval times, they were drawn as having no feet at all.  They can spend entire days on the wing, only landing to feed their young or to roost. 

The sight of the swifts screaming across the sky really lifted my mood.  The cold grey rainy days will return soon enough no doubt, but because of the swifts in the blue skies this morning the air was full of possibilities and new life.

"It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east.  The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man's energy."
-  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  

"Every spring is the only spring - a perpetual astonishment."
-  Ellis Peters  

*Southern English dialect word for being very very cold

The first swallow (or swift!) of summer?

To me there are always certain markers during the year that indicate the change of the season - the first frost, the first sight of snowdrops, the leaves starting to fall, the apple blossom, the vegetable and hazel harvest.  I usually equate swifts and swallows with the beginning of long summer days and clear blue skies and sunshine.  At the weekend, during a brief respite in the rain, we went for a walk on the South Downs, and walked through a host of darting swallows (or swifts, I always get confused), swooping over our heads and over the nearby field scooping up insects on the wing.  It was wonderful to see them and made me wonder if they were signs of a lovely summer to come.  I wish I could show you some pictures but they were far too quick and anyway, a static picture of a swallow shows nothing of its beauty. In spite of the dull cloudy weather or maybe because of it, the woods were resplendant with green.  I only took a few pictures:-

Wonderful green!

Common dog violet

One swallow does not make a spring, nor does one fine day

Aristotle