Crummock Ladies

The ladies’ swimming group is nothing if not fluid in taking the decision to plunge in at this time or that. There’s no committee, no agenda, no plan. Many things go into the decision, the weather forecast, other commitments, who else is free, petrol, and how long it’s been since the last gathering. Then someone flicks a thumb and the message goes out on Whatsapp in a yeast of digital text bubbles until in swelling anticipation, a venue and a time burst forth.

Today, Crummock lay like a looking glass reflecting a perfect Spring day of warm sunshine after a sharp night frost. Seven or eight of us stand on the shore getting changed, our thick coats, woolly jumpers and thermal leggings stuffed into carrier bags.  The water has a dark sheen, blue, with the opposite fells lying like butterflies sunning themselves, one wing silhouetted against the sky and the other in the water. We are too close to see the surface reflection on this side, just the rocky bottom showing brown and shadowy.
   
But our splashy entry causes ripples to run, spreading out to the island and as if in answer, the beginnings of a small breeze from up the valley pats at them, tapping them into neat foot long sections. And suddenly, we are swimming in an oil painting of colour. At eye level the side of each ripple glows ochre, a lighter tint of the bracken slopes above the road. In vivid contrast the undulating tops are ribbons of blue, echoing the sky. I am quite surprised for a second that my arms stretching for the next stroke are not permanently stained; but it’s a pigment of my imagination.

For the next 15 minutes or so we swim sedately, easy with conversations of families, holidays, and daily lives, feeling the cold against our skin, until the burn is just turning to numbness and our flasks of hot coffee call.

Then cocooned back up in double layers and dry-robes we leave, letting the lake and the light carry on creating their own art works.