The three photos below illustrate the final day of a four day holiday with my wife in August 2008.  I blogged about it at the time under the title, “Four seriously damp but totally delightful days among the English lakes“. We camped in the rain near Coniston Water. It was raining when we arrived.  It rained while we were there.  It rained as we were leaving.  As we drove past Newby Bridge (photograph above) we suddenly said, “Why don’t we go and get a cup of coffee at Fell Foot Park?  We’ve got our National Trust membership sticker on the car windscreen so it will be free (apart from the coffee of course).

By this time it had stopped actually raining but was still a very dull day, not what you want in August. From Fell Foot, close to where the River Leven leaves the lake, I took a number of photos including this one.

An hour or so later we’d moved further up the lake to Brockhole, the National Park centre. It was still cloudy but with patches of brightness and I was able to get a picture of the Swan carrying a few hardy visitors up and down the lake.

And then, as we walked up by the house at Brockhole the clouds parted and the sun appeared. Through the trees there was blue, on the trees there were brilliant greens.

Our detour along the Windermere shore had been more than worth the time.  It crowned what was a marvellous week – even in the Lake District rain.  And we have to remember that “If there were no rain there’d be no lakes”.

Last year was its first, and was oversubscribed at 2,500 entries.  This year it will be spread over 2 days, September 12th and 13th, allowing 5,000 people to take part.  In addition to the big names of swimming it is expected that thousands of ordinary people will swim the mile-long open water course from a spot on the lake shore by the Low Wood Hotel.

If you’re a swimmer there’s time to train, but possibly very little time to enter as this event is likely to be extremely popular and places are limited.

A range of charities will benefit from this outstanding Lake District event, including Diabetes UK, Cancer Research UK and Lifeboats to mention only three.

The response to this will inevitably be mixed, with some of the boating community distraught but many others pleased at the preservation of a quieter lake environment.