One of the things I love about Windermere is the sheer number of streams that wriggle their way down through the streets to the lake shores below. One or two are large enough to have names – Wynlass Beck to the north of Windermere and Mill Beck which forms the boundary between neighbouring parishes in Windermere and Bowness. Most, though, are tiny and nameless, and often culverted underground. Here and there they break cover, if you know where to look. There’s even one at the end of our back yard somewhere, although you’d be hard pushed to know it was there. Except in Storm Desmond, when it got blocked, overflowed, and flooded eight houses including ours!
The one above is visible for a short stretch on the Annisgarth estate and looks very pretty as it cascades over its tiny waterfall. It’s usually a little fuller than this, but we’ve had a lot of dry weather recently so when I went on my daily walk earlier in the week there was only a trickle coming over the lip. Not that it seemed to bother the duck you can just about make out, pottering about in the background.
There’s a lovely footpath along the side of Mill Beck not far from our house, which passes an impressive waterfall. There wouldn’t be much point photographing it in such dry condiitons but if we get more rain I’ll dash out and capture it and post a picture of that.
FIONA GLASS 