The Lake District will become a sea if it doesn't stop raining soon.

 

The first time I went to the lakes on holiday I was 14. It was a camp with a local youth group (Louise Barklam my best mate and fellow BDGP member was there too). I’d never been hill walking or done any activities like that before so it was all new to me. Canoeing I gibbered and sobbed because I was terrified of tipping under the water. The sods made people WALK ON MY CANOE in some 'fun' activity where we all had to run across them. Evil, evil people. I was oozing snot and everything. We looked at a stone circle at Castlerigg which made me write loads of crappy fiction about magic stone circles for the next year which I thought would get me published. I haven’t got any copies of that thankfully or I’d probably cringe so much I’d turn inside out.

  We went on a lovely midnight walk. Well it was beautiful when I reached the top of the hill, but I fell over constantly on the way up because I was 14 and didn’t want to wear my glasses. Myopic and in the dark I ended up chinning the dirt quite regularly. We even climbed a mountain. The highest one in the Lakes. I was a little townie from Central Drive, very small for my age that ate mainly chips and never even walked to school. My feet hurt, I ached all over. But when we reached the top of Helvellyn something happened. I can't describe it. Halfway up I'd had to cling to slate bits to pass an area of craggy steepness and was in a state of terror because I'd stupidly looked down. Snot again. But when I reached the top I can't describe the effect the sight of the landscape had on me.  A photo just isn’t the same, every step was worth it.  The colours, the presence of the mountains and lakes around evokes a peaceful state of mind. It’s easy to see how poets and artists are inspired by the Lake District. Can they capture the magic? I doubt completely, but they can stir our memories of the place and so we can relive it.

When the rain stops (I'm optimistic) I might just go back.