4. Ennerdale

Our way went on through woods, down towards Ennerdale water, and we began to feel like we were really in the Lake District. Seeing the water stretching out before us with the peaks in the background made me nostalgic for the days of my mid-to-late teens, when through a combination of the scouts, the school outdoor pursuits society and family friends I first discovered the lakes. I used to have a chart on my bedroom wall showing a Wainwright sketch map of the Lake District, with all the peaks marked, and a list at the bottom with little check boxes next to them so you could tick them off when you’d done them. I think I was up to forty odd.

By the by, I do have the dubious honour of having failed to climb the fourth or fifth smallest Wainwright hill: the forebodingly-named Black Crag, actually barely more than a hillock. I was twenty at the time, I think, on a jaunt in my old 2CV with WRM. On the day we went for Black Crag it was pouring with rain, and we could only snatch glances at our map to avoid it getting completely soaked through. The terrain looked sort of like it ought to, though alarm bells should probably have sounded when the bridge we were aiming for proved absent, and we had to take off our boots and socks and ford the river. Turned out we were in a very similar valley a couple of miles away from the one we should have been in, and had been screwed from the very start.

The one cloud hanging over these happy reminiscences was the state of Christian’s bowels. As anyone who knows my brother can confirm, this is a source of unending concern and analysis. A friend of mine once remarked that she’d never held a conversation with him that didn’t at some stage involve poo. In our flat on Caledonian Road there are two toilets, each of which contains reading material, and after a lengthy spell in ‘the pooing bog’ you can usually expect a vivid account of the state of things.

All was not well on this particular morning, and as we passed a little copse just at the edge of the lake, Christian looked furtively around then dropped his pack and disappeared into the trees, leaving me to keep watch. I sat on a fallen trunk, eating a Mars bar. I looked one way, and there was nothing. I looked the other way. I looked back, and a cyclist whizzed past out of nowhere. There was a frantic scuffle from the undergrowth. An old couple in waxed jackets advanced upon our position at some speed, with a dog. I looked towards the lake and called behind me. There was more scrabbling around, and a harassed-looking Christian stumbled out of the trees and sat down next to me, exchanging mock conversation and keeping a beady eye to make sure the dog didn’t venture anywhere untoward.

The mood lightened after that, and we had to walk almost the whole length of Ennerdale along the less busy southern bank. It wasn’t exactly overcast, but it wasn’t really sunny either; that perfect walking weather where you don’t get too hot or too cold and you feel like you could go on just about forever. I had dim memories of one of my old schoolteachers telling me that she had once walked all the way along barefoot, though maybe that was another lake. We passed a few walkers, all of whom stopped and asked us why on earth we were carrying such big packs and where we were going, but all of whom seemed quite encouraging when they discovered how cracked we really were.



Nearing the top of the lake we slumped on the pebbly beach and ate more Bovril sandwiches, along with some chocolate slice that my mum had sent us with, carefully wrapped in tin foil. The rocky bank path, with its straggly trees clutching at the sparse clods of earth, gave way to lush meadows, and we made our way past some limping sheep and an outdoor centre with racks of canoes up against the side of the house, to a hard Forestry Commission track through a managed conifer plantation.