A walk around the lake

It was extremely hot yesterday, temperatures in the high eighties. The dog gulped water from his dish and then went to lie down on the stone floor in the kitchen (the only surface that was cool). After lunch (roast chicken, strawberries to follow) I went for a drive – never have I been so glad of air-conditioning in my car!



In the fields the water sprays created rainbow arcs in the fierce sun.



Sheep (most of them shorn of their coats) gathered lethargically in the shade of spreading trees.



The horses had on their fly fringes (sometimes they wear masks of gauze that fit over the ears and hang over the face like a veil).



At the Hall there was no answer from the front door.

Walking round to the back the elderly chatelaine (last of a banking family) was sitting out on the terrace, under an awning. After some moments of polite conversation I said I would go for a walk around the lake. As I set off down the lawns her voice carried after me:

“There’s over eight different kinds of oak around the lake. The cedar trees were put in when the house was built. Have a look at the sunken garden, it was dug by my father in the nineteen-fifties – we were hoping at the time he was digging a swimming pool!”



At the end of the lawn I looked back and took this photograph. The steps you can see lead up to the terrace. They are actually quite steep steps, encrusted with lichen. It was on these steps in 2001 that my mother became “stuck” – too frightened to move in case she might fall (really, more frightened of what people might think of her rather than the physical effects of falling). This was when her illness and frailty became so apparent that we could no longer pretend there was nothing wrong. I have often thought about these steps, and seeing them again, after five years, I looked at them carefully as if they might provide some kind of explanation.



A gentle walk clockwise around the lake, no relief from the heat even under the trees. Occasionally there were glimpses of the Hall across the wide expanse of water. All pervasive was the smell of nettles heated by the sun (a wonderful syrupy smell).



The Hall was built in the 1840s and has been lived in by the same family ever since. These photographs make it look gloomy but in reality the sun was blazing down. I think the excessive sunlight has made the camera overcompensate.



At the farthest end of the lake, where I guess few people ever go now, the yellow flag irises were grouped in big clumps in the water – it must have taken decades for them to grow like this. The colours in this photograph havn’t come out very well, but it gives a good impression of the glaring heat of the afternoon, washing the colour from the landscape. Across the ornamental stone bridge, the balustrades half-covered by ivy (very sweet fresh smell at this point – I think it could be the cedar trees).



Two trees reflected in the water, the ducks streaming across. The sense of peace was cathartic, compensating for the week spent in the hot city. Is it justifiable for so much natural beauty to be held and enjoyed by a very few people (or would opening it to a wider public destroy the silence and tranquility?).