Down by the waters, the Blue Tits, Windermere’s wild swimmers, meet by the jetties on a Tuesday. I have met them two years in a row now, when I’ve taken Future Machine to the water at the end of summer.
Usually, when I arrive (without Future Machine in tow) I walk to the end of one of the jetties, immersing myself in the patterns on the water, losing myself in the movement and flow, whatever my mood or mind’s obsessions. Best of all is when the sun is glinting and sparkling, jumping, tracing the line of its bright shine – what is the word for the sun throwing its light onto water, the opposite of casting a shadow? I say hello to the peaks and fells, the Langdales. I say hello to what remains of the Atlantic Forest, on the opposite shore, even less forest now since the storms increased.
I settle and celebrate this returning home.
I started walking down to the jetties with Future Machine when summer ends three years ago. Sometimes from the library at the top of the hill. Sometimes in procession with others. Last year, just us – me, Future Machine and Seb (my husband).
Down the steep road we trundled, slowing the too fast cars. I hold on, trying not to run myself over with the weight of Future Machine’s top heavy Ash octagon shaped body, behind me. We reach the path to the waters, playing the music of the weather. We slowly edge to the shore. Dusk falls as we celebrate the end of summer with whoever decides to meet us, join us, passing by, or returning, this year, in this place, speaking to the future and listening to the past, as the sun sets on the water.
Every year, it feels more complicated to return to a place that was once an ideal, a dream of belonging. Of beauty. The lake is now polluted with sewage, algae. Foam like substances, not all naturally formed, lap the shoreline. Many trees fell here (and all over) in the storm of 2016, when the North Wind blew and pulled up even the wisest, strongest of trees. Ash is dying. Every year more and more lose their leaves, turn to sticks, to skeleton. Favourite old friends, mere shadows and ghosts.
I know now how much we have eroded these mountains, this land. Now there are less sheep the fells are turning to bracken. Autumnal blankets of red, orange and brown. Maybe things are changing with the re-introduction of cattle, where once the Aurochs roamed. On Claife Heights on the opposite shore, the deforestation reminds me of the trenches in the first world war, of Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza now, the Amazon and the other Atlantic Forest, mass deforestation mirrored on the other side of the equator.
I think of my friends lost. Ash, humans – my kin, the certainty of seasons.
I see a great Ash still alive and thriving on a late summers day, and although I can see the skeletons of others further down the valley, I still believe in our shared future. I will still be here, returning and remembering as long as I can. I hope to meet you, returning and remembering too.
I watch the alive ash, its stillness and movement, its ancientness and newness. I want to keep hold of it. I try to resist holding too tightly, trying too hard. I resist my normal desire to run at the biggest challenges and calls to adventure. Now, I feel the pull of the heart, of simplicity, walking together, ignoring the thoughts in our heads and looking up. Knowing each act of return, of remembrance, of togetherness, solitude and connection, is love and grief. Celebrating and letting go.
Future Machine will be returning to the shores of Lake Windermere on Saturday 27th September 2025.