Swarms

Windermere had a little adventure yesterday.

A crowd of nuisances, bearing banners bellowing that they wished to save the lake from becoming filled with sewage, turned up outside the Post Office and then marched, belligerently, down to the lake banging drums and tooting whistles, presumably for the purpose of treating poor United Utilities to some rough-musicking to teach them a lesson. Fortunately the office was closed for the weekend, and so they were spared any embarrassment that they might otherwise have felt, but that did not seem to deter the enthusiastic  paraders.

I was trying to get to the ironmonger and got stuck in the middle of them. None of them seemed to be local, obviously they had all thought they would help the lake by coming up here for the day, so I hope none of them needed a bathroom before they went home. Certainly the ones I took back to the station in the taxi later on were from all sorts of not-terribly-local places like Accrington and Preston and St. Helen’s.

If you have seen it on the news and you are being told it is a local protest, listen with all the credulity that any report on the BBC deserves. Everyone I saw, except for a neighbour who seemed to be walking her dog, and the local hippie who turns up to everything, was a complete stranger

This whole thing has become a bit of a talking point in Windermere at the moment, not least because there are posters up all over the place highlighting the foul nature of the lake for the benefit of visitors, all of whom are just about to go for a swim.

We have managed to swim in it dozens of times without being poisoned, but it would appear that we have barely escaped with our lives.

Some of the big hotels, with their hundreds of guests, their daily laundering of hundreds of sheets and towels, and their regular emptying of hot tubs, have started to whinge that United Utilities is not managing to keep the lake as clean as they should, and that we have got a problem with poisonous algae caused by laundry detergent and poo.

I can see why they are worried. They have all been allowed to expand massively. Also, the big houses on the side of the lake, lots of which are now holiday houses sleeping twenty people, all have their own septic tanks which may or may not have been properly installed and maintained. Somebody is even trying to build a hundred new houses on the road coming in to Windermere. Obviously they want the water companies expensively to expand their operation so that they can carry on. In fact some television company came and banged on my front door last week to ask me what I thought about it, wanting the opinions of a local. I told them what I thought about it, so probably they didn’t air it.

Anyway, they are all blaming United Utilities, and here were hundreds more strangers joining in, which made me feel very grumpy indeed, especially when it turned out that I could still hear their irritating drumming all the way up to the top of the fell.

It is still summer, despite the chill, and I have been wearing my shorts to walk on the fells. This is not because of the heat but because it means I don’t come back with sodden trousers. Still it is quite splendid. The wild honeysuckle is out, and the dog-roses are in full bloom, and this morning, for the first time, the newly-leggy frogs had emerged.

I have been looking for them for a few days, and I was so excited I watched them for ages. They are tiny, no bigger than little spiders, and they are swarming all over the mud a little way from the tarn. I don’t suppose many of them will make it, there are lots of hungry birds around at this time of year, all looking for plunder to stuff into a nest full of gaping beaks, but I was pleased to see them. I took a picture but they were even more camera-shy than Meghan Markle, and dashed away and hid. Can you see the last one?

I saw two tawny owl fledglings at the side of the road this evening, just as it was going dusk. They had not quite shed the last of their fluff, and looked at me with astonished big eyes for ages before they flew away.

In other news, I have finally handed in my dissertation. It was a couple of days early. I was just starting to re-read it yesterday when I realised I had absolutely and completely lost interest in all things disserty. I was, I realised, all disserted out. I could not dissert any more, so I just checked the page numbers and wrote an amusing message for the admin assistant on the bottom, and clicked Send.

It is done. The die has been thoroughly cast.

As soon as I have finished dusting I will be able to get on with my story.

I am looking forward to that.