I had a magical time on Monday.

The Easter weekend had been spent with family, doing the good company, good food and good fun thing, but on Monday I headed out onto the fells alone.

We’d had some snow (Husband told me to take great care about three times in as many hours) and the fell forecast talked about wind chill factors of -16, told walkers to be aware of fresh snow laying on top of frozen, compacted snow and said, “the cornices on the eastern slopes of Helvellyn should be avoided”.

You don’t say.

But the sun was shining when I set out, and the day was fresh and bright.  I worked my way up from the valley floor past Birkett’s Leap and Puddingstone Bank into the secretive hanging valley called Watendlath.  The tarn was shining silver grey and still, and snow-heavy clouds were moving in from the north-west.

There was snow, but not much – little swirls and patches jealously guarded by their shading tussock or stone.  In the little hamlet by the tarn, I bought frothy milky coffee and shared a rock bun with the brave, pink-chested chaffinches, while the rising wind blew their feathers the wrong way.

I turned my back on my first choice of route – up to Dock Tarn and down by Lingy End – and decided instead to set off down Watendlath to descend via High Lodore.  Under the hanging, shattered crags of Ether Knott, and the dripping-damp woods of Mire Moss, the snow came down in earnest.  Silent, still, dancing flakes that snagged on my face and tickled my hands.  I stood in the woodland and lifted my head to watch it fall.  Sifted winter-white against a backdrop of pure emerald green, each spindly ancient oak and young hazel cloaked in velvet moss that smoothed out hummocks and stumps and made a soft and hidden land.

It was hard to decide if I’d wandered into Narnia, or if I’d found my way to Middle Earth.  I swear, I would not have been surprised to see a dryad step out from her tree.

Then on, through the woodland, deafened by the thunder of Watendlath Beck tumbling down its ravine to Lodore Falls.  A careful descent of Ladder Brow, with Green Bank on my left, and Hogs Earth looming over my right shoulder.  Back to the car past Comb Gill, Leathersides Dub and Cummacatta Wood, Eelstep Brow and the Boulder Stone.

I love so many things about where I live.

But the names are high on the list.

I wish, I really wish, I could explain to you how my heart is rising on this journey.

The train is running down the valley in the shadow of the Howgill fells.  It’s raining, little silver snakes of water are hurry-hurry-hurrying diagonally across the windows as beech trees and sycamore, and hawthorn bushes already russet-red with berries flash past.  Everything is glimpses and a moment’s view – impressions of a landscape I love like my own family.

A line of grey wall, sagging a little, far-from straight.  The creamy white flock of sheep dotted on emerald green sward.  The little changes of colour and texture in a field that tell me here are rushes in a spring-fed flush, here are sharp thistles and defensive nettles, here the bracken is dying back into autumn gold.

We run under a bridge, a blurring of the senses into a smear of dark wall, then a sudden sight of misty clouds crawling down the steep slope of the curving hills, shadowed with stands of gorse.  White, grey, and a dozen different greens.

Slowing into the station.  Fence and gate, cow and horse, a bench seat with a brass plaque shining.  Wet passengers on a wet platform, heads down under pink hoods and blue.

On again.  Rushing on, away from workloads, and toward friends and fun.

 

Perfect.

Ahh, the bliss of a coastal holiday.

There are a few things that reduce me to being a complete, silly child.  One of them is Christmas, the other is snow (it’s been so long since there was a White Christmas here, that I hesitate to try and imagine the consequences of both influences acting at once.  Possibly I’d revert so far I’d need nappies).  Another one is playing in the sea.

Those who are familiar with the Northumberland Coast probably started shivering at that thought.  Yes, it’s cold. No, the sun did not shine continuously, but when it did, we made whoopee.

(In fact, we made whoopee when the rain came down, because the sound of rain on tent canvas masks all other noises, you know, and if you’ve got to stay in, you might as well make the most of it….)

But the sun did shine on Monday afternoon, and we rushed into swim wear and hot-footed it down to the beach. 

Which had disappeared.  Well, mostly.  The waves were breaking into white-frothed monsters out on the rocky shore beyond the sand, and the wind-whipped salt spray hazed the view.  The tide was in.  Well in.  We probably would have talked about how magnificent the rolling, shouting, leaping waves were, if they weren’t shouting too loud for speech.

It was probably a slightly more risky sea than we should have swum in.  But it was so, so much fun.  The first time Husband turned round to laugh at me trying to leap out of the way of a patch of seaweed, and got slapped on the back of the head by a wave taller than he was, I was so entertained I almost got wiped out by the same wave.

I don’t think I was in any real risk of drowning, unless it was from laughing so hard and so continuously I started to choke…

We didn’t want to go in.  But, alas, our arms and legs started to tire, the seaweed wrapped around our ankles was starting to act like a sea anchor, and we were finding it increasingly difficult to counteract the impressive undertow.  So we stood on the beach and drip-dried, watching the truly beautiful scene.

That night, Husband tells me I stirred in my sleep and said, “those waves sound amazing,” at least three times.  They roared through the night.

My blog is up today on Kate Walker‘s Great Big Blog Party to celebrate her 50th published book!

I’m talking about places I’ve written, so go see and leave a comment for a chance to win a lovely harback book of Lake District views.

It’s odd, isn’t it? Green is the colour of Go. Red means stop, danger.

So why are there so many words that mean red, and so few usable ones that mean green?

Think about it. Say you’re describing a pool of blood – it could be crimson, vermillion, scarlet, claret, burgundy…

Now say you’re describing new grass. It’s… green. Light green. It’s not pistachio or jade, lime or couleur de corpse. It’s possibly emerald. But it’s certainly not olive.

Meanwhile, our pool of (now congealing) blood is ruby, wine and ruddy, carmine and cardinal. It may even be flushed cherry.

Our grass is still… Green. It’s distinctly un-chartreuse-like, and I’d struggle to call it malachite. It’s not beryl. Beryl is an old woman in a nylon pinny and a knitted hat.

Is it pea? It peeing well isn’t.

Bah. I live in England’s Green and Pleasant Land, and when spring springs, there just aren’t the words to describe the new grass, the bursting hawthorn, the budding alders and willows, the sharp spires of daffodil leaves and the soft moss.

There’s just not enough Green to describe the Green.