Faffing Brings Its Own Rewards

“Faffing Brings Its Own Rewards”

The picturesque Cumbrian Mountains close in around Brother’s Water on three sides, but that morning they were invisible: the sky closed down from above, cutting off all sight above a height of about 50 metres with an impenetrable grey-white ceiling. Which was atmospheric to be sure, but didn’t exactly show the glorious setting of the lake to its best advantage.

I’d driven south from a sunny Threlkeld, Francine and Michele had driven north through an equally sunny Windermere valley; we met in cloud so low it was nearly fog. Undaunted by a little weather, we nonetheless considered our choice of destination a tad unlucky that morning, there being no shortage of potential swimming lakes in the Lake District. We discussed this, as we looked at the cold, steel-grey water. We also discussed cake, sheep, deflating tow-floats, the buoys in the lake, swans, the two dogs (a black lab and a collie) who where there when we arrived. We covered many subjects other than that of actually getting in the water. We were so long about it that another black lab and collie happened by, travelling in the opposite direction. That they were the same dogs but yet not the same, was the cause of a few more minutes of not-swimming.

And eventually the cloud abandoned its embrace of the lake, lifted, shrank to a mere wisp of itself, and then evaporated. We stepped into a welcoming lake in glorious sunshine a mere hour after arriving at the shore.

“Faffing brings its own rewards” said Michele.

About these pictures:

It so happens – and is entirely appropriate – that there was a more than usual degree of faffing in the creation of this picture. What I’d had in mind, as we swam back across Brothers water from the buoy that we were definitely not going to swim to, was the strange shapes made by the reflections of mountain peaks and sky troughs, as the smooth flat surface of the lake buckled in front of our movement. But I realized it wouldn’t do for a drawing of swimmers: it is specifically the view as seen by the front swimmer. I can’t include swimmers in a drawing and still show these reflections.

So instead, I shilly-shallied over a number of possible compositions, before eventually settling on an idea, spent some hours wrestling with a drawing that gave me a little trouble. I finished it… and instantly disliked it. The next day I spent a few more hours on another version of it, which I was relieved to find much more successful. Then I showed them both to a friend, in order to illustrate why the first one was no good, and naturally she preferred the first one.

Maybe if I did a third drawing, I could extract what I think is worth extracting from each drawing, into a wonderful third drawing. But more likely it would fall victim to too many thoughts pulling in different directions, so I won’t try.