For once it wasn't raining, and my new walking boots needed a good workout. Spent a little while poring over the OS map (English Lakes, NW area), and remembered we hadn't been to Cogra Moss for ages. Lovely remote little baby lake, undiscovered by tourists, and only used by a few peaceful anglers and many waterfowl. (See photo, left.) It's sort of beyond the village of Lamplugh on the other side of the fell from Loweswater. 
There's a little off-road carpark, where we left the car, and the dogs and I wandered across the field full of disinterested sheep, which hardly glanced at us as we passed. At the top of the field you reach a gate, and beyond the gate we found an ominous sign, informing us that forestry work was ongoing, and for safety reasons the path down to the lake was closed. There was even a useful map (shown right) explaining exactly which bits of forest were to go. Bugger.
Oh well, not to be put off, we put a brave face on it, returned to the car, and made our way to the next lake along, Loweswater. This turned out to be rather a good idea, as it happens, because I normally only go there in summer for some reason, and at that time of year the water is infested with toxic blue-green algae which makes swimming for the dogs too hazardous to permit. Today the water was clear and bright and the dogs could happily dash in, swimming and splashing to their hearts' content.
Loweswater is quite a moody looking lake on a grey day like today, but in some ways I prefer it without the perfect blue skies you see in the touristy photos. There were plenty of wet and muddy places in which to test the waterproofness of my new boots, and they emerged with shining colours. Well, they emerged covered in mud, actually, but my feet remained dry.
Halfway along the lake shore we came across a lovely little bothy, all clean and tidy and locked up, though it looks like it gets used by whoever can find the key. Through the window you can see a basic kitchen complete with cooker, simple bench seating and an instruction sheet. In the other room there's a ladder leading up into a loft, where walkers or others presumably can sleep. It's a lot cleaner looking than the bothies you find in the Highlands, but those, of course, don't need to be locked up. This one is too near civilization to expect civilized conduct from all who find it.
These are not quiet woods. Further along we hear a commotion ahead, and an army of benevolent English pensioners comes streaming towards us, all outfitted by the best of Keswick's outdoor gear shops complete with backpacks and walking poles. (One of these days I shall devote an entire blog to the pointlessness of walking poles, but I digress . . .) They look happy and fit, chatting pleasantly to each other, and smiling in a genuinely friendly manner to me and my crazy dogs. Sometimes you can't help liking English people, however hard you try not to. Then again, maybe I've just lived here too long, and I'm getting sucked in.A little further on we find two ladies in identical red anoraks sitting on identical folding camping stools, taking in a superb view across the lake while they share a vacuum flask of tea. Well, honestly, what could be nicer than sitting with a friend (actually they looked like mother and daughter) sipping tea in such surroundings? See what I mean about being sucked in to the niceness of the English? I sometimes feel they need protecting from all these scary immigrants who will surely destroy all this niceness and turn England into a wild and crazy place like the rest of the world. Maybe it's up to us Scots to protect our auld enemies from something much worse. Strange thought, that.
Well, back to the dogwalk. I take photos of all the little streams that flow into Loweswater. Some are named on the map, like Dub Beck and Holme Beck, but others are not. I intend to upload some of these pictures the the River Names of Britain group on Flickr, but I can't use unnamed becks. Not that anyone would be any the wiser if I just named them on the spot - I could call them Oscar Beck and Aineko Beck after my cats. I wonder how long it would take before anyone noticed? Actually they probably never would. The internet is full of errors, mistakes and downright lies, which people just blindly copy from website to blog to social networking site without ever checking their veracity. I used to try to correct things, but after a while you give up. People don't want to know. So the description of the world around us is changing before our eyes: those of us who know what's correct will gradually die off, leaving a generation who rely solely on what they read online to inform them.
Is it a new phenomenon, I wonder, where one has a gut feeling that one's parents' generation was probably the best one, (well, apart from the wars, of course), and things have been sliding downhill ever since?
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