Cumbria Naturally
  • Home
  • Blog
  • My Books
    • Cumbrian Contrasts
    • A Lakeland Experience >
      • Introduction
      • Derwent
      • Langdale
      • Ullswater
      • Kentdale
    • About Scout Scar
    • Atlantic Odyssey
  • Other Writing
    • What Larks!
    • Further - Explore Shetland
    • Autumn Migration
    • Rydal and Nab Scar
    • Perspectives
    • The River Kent
    • Wings
  • Gallery
  • Contact

Rydal Water

30/11/2019

0 Comments

 
PictureReflections on Rydal Water
Floodlight on Lord Crag and Nab Scar, fiery grasses and bracken, a glow of gold   through the hanging wood.   Shielded by fells, Rydale lies in shadow and a deep frost.  Tomorrow is the first day of winter, of meteorological winter, and it’s below freezing.  Below Loughrigg Fell the woodland canopy billows like ice-clouds.  Slender branches are filmed with rime-ice, like antler velvet.  Sunlight in a sky of blue, the morning calm and still.  The flaming heights, the hanging wood and the frost-pastures below the Coffin Route are mirrored in Rydale Water.


​Rydale Water, so Dorothy Wordsworth calls the vale where she and her brother William walked when they made their home at Dove Cottage over two hundred years ago.  The sun is not long risen as we walk the southern shore  and there is solitude.  As the morning advances there is more traffic on the road following the northern shore, more walkers.  Someone falls ill along the Coffin Route and the mountain rescue are out in force with a helicopter landing in a pasture by Pelter Bridge.  A 21st century response to a medical crisis.  I remember the tragedy that befell the Green family of Blind Tarn Cottage, Easdale in March 1808 when the couple were lost in a snowstorm and the search was undertaken by local shepherds who knew the fells.   
​Rime-ice whitens the top-of a wall, of a ruined barn by White Moss.  Look north toward Nab Scar to a dry stone wall that soars over scree and scar to Lord Crag.  I love the lonely hanging wood. The Coffin Route below, a walker’s route over the high fell but surely no one ventures into the rough and tumble wild wood.  Walking south, we’re dazzled by the sun. The rime-ice is melted, the ground softened by the warmth of the sun. 
​Home again, I reread Dorothy Wordsworth’s Grasmere Journal and ponder her experience and ours.  She and her brother  walk everywhere, sometimes by moonlight.  They are not troubled by Climate Change, Species Loss,  exponential population growth.  Although there’s poverty, beggars at the door.  Dove Cottage is not insulated from its surroundings, it’s damp and cold, a confined space for a growing family.  Dorothy is a keen observer but she laments not having ‘ a book of botany.’  No field-guides at Dove Cottage. She speaks of a stone chat in the Rydale shallows- probably a wagtail. There are ' small birds'  she does not know.  She sees (or thinks she sees) a heron swimming. Two days later I’m at Leighton Moss where there's a range of optics, binoculars, telescopes, powerful cameras. And ID posters and field-guides galore.  And all those wildlife documentaries.
Take a look at the winter woods in my images.  The white rime-ice woods of the early morning down in the dale.  The dark green of Scots pine on the shore.  And the golden wood of Nab Scar.  Must be reflections of sunlight on rime-ice, and bracken beneath the winter trees. 
Charlotte Bronte had a copy of Thomas Bewick's Waterbirds and she has Jane Eyre reading it.  The Wordsworths are often reading Shakespeare's plays but there's no reference to Bewick's work. 
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    Jan Wiltshire is a nature writer living in Cumbria. She also explores islands and coast and the wildlife experience. (See Home and My Books)

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    November 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    April 2010
    January 2010
    November 2009
    January 2009
    January 2004

    Categories

    All
    A Local Patch
    Birdlife
    Butterflies And Moths
    Flowers
    Locations
    Views
    Walks
    Weather
    WIldlife

    RSS Feed

Website
Home
Blog
Gallery
Contact



​Cookie Policy
My Books
  • Intro - My books
  • ​Cumbrian Contrasts
  • A Lakeland Experience
  • About Scout Scar
  • Atlantic Odyssey
    ​
Other Writing
  • Intro - Other Writing
  • What Larks!
  • Further - Explore Shetland
  • Autumn Migration
  • Rydal and Nab Scar
  • Perspectives
  • The River Kent
  • Wings
Jan Wiltshire - Cumbria Naturally
© Jan Wiltshire 2022 All rights reserved
Website by Treble3