Coniston

My brother had his sights set on a much higher target than me today. He went off to climb his first mountain, The Old Man of Coniston. I know only too well my limitations! So instead I guided my parents back to the quiet eastern coast of Coniston Water. I really could spend all day here, sitting on a sunny rock or sheltering in the mossy groves of trees, clinging to the lakeside shore.

Mum was keen to see the birds I had spotted yesterday; the strange saw-toothed ducks called red breasted mergansers. She needn’t have worried; they kept appearing from all over the place. The males were relatively easy to identify, but the female looked more like another species! Still it gave us plenty to debate, photograph and study.

Tentatively I tiptoed in and was surprised to find the water was really rather pleasant.

The morning was beautiful and still and eventually I gave into temptation and went for a paddle in the clear, bubbling waters. Tentatively I tiptoed in and was surprised to find the water was really rather pleasant. I had expected a real shock as my feet hit freezing water. But instead I found myself wishing I had something to cushion my bare feet from the shale pebbles.

Eventually we headed to Coniston where we stopped at a pub for lunch. I had a rather excellent Cumberland sausage with callcalon (sorry about the spelling) and onion gravy.

Afterwards Dad dropped me and Mum in a lay-by before heading off without us! It was actually deliberate. The lay-by was beside the wide estuary of the river Crake. We sat at a picnic table, watching the tide slowly recede, whilst oyster-catchers and lapwings scurried about on the newly uncovered sand.

There was even another merganser, with sixteen ducklings of a good size. How on earth could so many of them have survived?