Jonathan Cowie
Meeting strangers in car parks is a peculiarly outdoor swimmer pastime: a quick change under a dryrobe, a shared flask of coffee, and boots on for a muddy walk to the water’s edge. And so, on a chilly Saturday morning in November, we found ourselves in a layby in the Lake District. Any weekend that starts with a dip in Windermere with a complete bunch of strangers is off to a good start, but in a modern twist we all already knew each other from Instagram: “How lovely to meet you in real life.”
Contributing editor Alice and I were in the Lake District for the Kendal Mountain Festival, and were getting into the spirit of the weekend with an early morning swim with the Buoy 13 Swimming Club, a group of friends and swimmers who meet several mornings a week at Millerground to swim to a buoy 200m-ish off the shore of Windermere. Skins and wetsuits, friendships were cemented as we all waded or jumped into the 9-degree water and swam out into the lake.
DOWN JACKETS AND BOBBLE HATS
The Kendal Mountain Festival is a long weekend of films, talks, events and socialising for outdoor adventurers – climbers, mountaineers, cyclists, trail runners… and, since 2016, outdoor swimmers. For the first time this year the programme also included a literature festival exploring creativity and imagination in landscape and nature. So, something for everyone. More than 14,000 people descend on Kendal for the festival, turning the town into the world’s largest gathering of down jackets and bobble hats.