Blow The Wind Southerly sang contralto Kathleen Ferrier who must have known the feeling, living in Silloth during her international singing career until she died in 1953. Pine trees massed on the bank above the seaside town's emerald green have been forced over by prevailing winds through the years to stay for ever tilted like toppling ninepins. A gale was blowing true to form as I recently drove along the Solway and into Lakeland's mountains.
From the shiny new Navvies Bridge at Workington that replaces the original span over the river Derwent (washed away by the floods of 2009) – and with gales shrieking through the "coat-hanger" shape of this micro Tyne Bridge designed for pedestrians and cyclists – to farther up the coast at Dubmill Point where breakers crashed over the shore to be flung high before scattering shingle on the adjoining road, the storm was unabated. Flying boughs from trees near the Pheasant Inn just missed my car while passing by Bassenthwaite; I saw a caravan toppled over in what would have seemed a sheltered paddock.
Past Keswick I stopped in Thirlspot, to toil upwards bent over my poles to where the waterspout above a fellside pool spouts high into the air at such times. I was turned back fortunately by winds that were too strong before it could douse me with foam as it fell back earthwards. It was then I watched as on the hillside walkers laden with heavy rucksacks, which would normally have made them lose their balance while leaning forward at such a precarious angle, came "floating" down, using the support of the up-draught as if in the act of actually flying, arms outstretched and hovering over the drop. At last they reached the fields below, exhilarated by their eccentric descent, but thankful there had been no sudden lull in the wind's fury which would have caused them, laden by their backpacks, to nose-dive precipitately down Helvellyn's flanks.