I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Originally written for Lodestars Anthology
“I wandered lonely as a cloud”, proclaimed Wordsworth on rambling in the Lake District. Yet how often do you see just one single cloud? At times, indeed; that one lone cloud bravely gracing the skies on a clear day, the most beautiful sight in the sky. Yet, more often than not, the clouds wander lonely yet together - simultaneously drifting steadily east or west, northwards or southwards. Normally I am that one, brave cloud drifting along - alone yet not lonely. But this time, I was joined by another to ramble along with. Two lonely clouds running up hillsides in one of my very favourite places in England, the Lake District, on a bitter cold January day.
The Lake District, I think, is a hill-walkers dream. I am quite certain that it would take more than a lifetime to ramble every trail it has to offer, to explore those that are yet to be discovered, to admire every view. But I will try anyway. Indeed, there are certain places that, no matter how many times you visit, they will never become boring. The very nature of nature is that no two days spent outside are the same - the changing winds and seasons, the different cloud formations and sunbeams. And then there is seeing somewhere you have seen multiple times through new eyes - the eye of someone who is seeing it for the very first time. That was exactly the case when I took my younger sister to the Lake District, and two days were spent in winter jumpers and walking boots; hiking to hilltops and running down mountain sides.
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Winding roads of Cumbrian gold; fluffy white clouds dazzling the sky and fluffy white sheep gracing the fields. We were en-route to Blea Tarn, I was in the driver’s seat squealing every time a slightly more confident driver squeezed between us and the dry-stone wall on the other side - with less that an inch between both, I’m sure. We laced up our boots on arrival and added a couple of layers to our bodies. I swung my camera over my shoulder and together we wandered down to the water-front. Blea Tarn is a small body of water nestled beneath high peaks. If you’re lucky, you may see a clear reflection of the Langdale Pikes in the tarn. On this particular day, the wind was sending ripples through the water and the clouded sky meant there was no such view - but it was beautiful anyway. It is a place that always seems so peaceful; where phone service is non-existent and nature is allowed to flourish. Protected by the National Trust, Blea Tarn will always be the place I tell people to go when they first visit the Lakes. It will always be the place I go back to every time I myself visit, until I’m 90 I hope - with tea and biscuits, a picnic blanket and a good book.
The next day, I had something more adventurous planned. From the village of Ambleside, we headed up and up and up through thick yellow grass and alongside crumbling dry-stone walls, past Low Pike then High Pike where the wind viciously whipped the bare skin on our cheeks and tugged exasperatedly at our hair tucked beneath woollen hats. We were walking and talking incessantly like only sisters can do, until I realised that we might possibly be quite lost… By this point the wind was relentless, and trying to manoeuvre a map to a readable position was impossibly difficult as the sky seemed determined to steal it away. Our hands were like icicles and with difficulty speaking I had to admit to my little sister, who had trusted me wholeheartedly with route-planning, “I have absolutely no idea where we are.” So together we traced the line we were supposed to walk and realised we had taken a completely different but parallel path. We made a plan to descend away from the wind as quickly as possible, and then hurtled down the hillside as the icicles in our hands quickly defrosted and our spirits rose once again; greedily consuming the beauty of the surrounding landscapes before it was time to head south once more.
There is something I find so alluring about the English Lake District. Perhaps it is in the combination of homely and welcoming landscapes that become brutal and unforgiving in a single, swift gust of wind. It is in the way the air whispers soft tales of times gone by, or in imagining writers and poets sitting on these banks and taking inspiration from these hills. When I am there, I want to close my eyes and absorb all that beauty and hope and the fragility of nature - but these landscapes cannot be taken away… And so all I can do is come back again and again until I am 90 - to sit on these grassy hilltops with tea and biscuits, a picnic blanket and a good book.
