Glenridding village February 2016
I nearly added to the waters that have recently flooded the
village of Glenridding when I visited there last Saturday. I had to fight back the tears for it is a
place I have spent innumerable happy days camping and walking across the fells over the past 25 years. I now live only a
few miles away and it was my first visit of the New Year, having last been
there at the end of November before the series of storms that have inflicted so
much devastation on this beautiful place.
Despite seeing the pictures of the television, I wasn’t prepared for the
sight that greeted me and this, after the initial clean-up operations have
taken place.
The weather was in keeping with the scene in the village and
with my feelings. The beck, noisy and agitated, rushed past the houses and shops and boarded-up Tourist Information Centre. Grey clouds clung to the tops of the fells and emptied themselves
into the lake, further swelling its waters. So many of my memories of Ullswater are of a tranquil lake, often
mirror-like, reflecting the surrounding fells on its surface.
True, I have also seen it during previous
winters in wind and rain, but I have never before seen it in this angry, gloomy
mood. It had grown in depth and width
following the series of storms and rain
and its waters seemed to be lapping menacingly at the edges and perimeters of
everything – lake shore, fields, boat houses, road. Steel-grey seemed to be the colour that
pervaded everywhere; skies, water, road, soaked slate walls and buildings,
steel barriers, heaps of stone and rubble, bedraggled trees.
Memories of happy times flooded my mind – days spent around
the village, in and out of the shops, sitting on the wall beside the beck,
walking along the path out to the campsite, to Lanty’s Tarn or to begin the
climb up to ‘the hole in the wall’ and onto Striding Edge. I saw those summer evenings again, walking to
the pub after conquering Helvellyn, Place Fell, Catstycam, Sheffield Pike, St
Sunday Crag, to name but a few, eager for a cold lager and a good meal. I saw the days spent walking along the path
beside the lake and taking my boots and socks off to have my feet refreshed by
the cold waters. The place has soaked
into me over the years and on Saturday, it felt as though I was witnessing a
calamity that had befallen an old, dear friend.
Glenridding from nearby fells in sunnier days
It will take a while to rebuild and re-gain strength but in the
meantime, I wish it well and will visit regularly. It will recover again, open all its doors, brim
with life, sparkle like the little gem
of a village that it is, nestled among the fells near the shores of lovely
Ullswater.
Ullswater taken looking towards Glenridding end of the lake
