You may not enter here

Access | Learning to taking care | Impossible water | Tales of the depths

The sign at the start of the lane proclaims it private. You may not walk around the lake or remain on site without a permit. Further down, in small print; no picnics, buy food from the cafe. No photographs; make sure you have the subject’s permission. No barbecues. No swimming. No fishing unless you are a member. Day memberships unavailable.

I buy my permit from the cafe, clarify that I am allowed to take photos of landscape (for gods sake!) and start off. The crowns of the trees are russet, golden, and the sun is strong. Shadows stretch across the grass. I see no one else but I pass more signs. I have my pass in my pocket - keep it on you, the cafe owner said. In case of fishermen.

It is beautiful here but I am angry. I understand that land can be owned, but there is something about nature, that should be free and available to everyone, being commodified that rankles. You cannot own this light. You cannot own the fallen leaves, the bright sky. You cannot own the water, even if you own the bank. There is a conundrum, I know; the litter left by picnickers, the law suits from swimmers in trouble, the noise and the mess and the waste of it. But is the way round it to charge? To restrict access, make it only available to a few? What if the answer was appreciation, to teach each other how to take care, how to leave no trace?

There is a long tongue of land, snaking out through the middle of the lake. The water is impossibly clear, ethereally blue. It looks like something from a fairytale, a forgotten land beneath the lake shimmering in the steely liquid. A spire with a ringing church bell, lanes spiraling out from a central square now filled with fish, with naiads and fairies and folk. An enchanted place.

The sign also says no swimming, and yet they offer swimming sessions for a fee, at certain times. Not at this time. So it is not that the water is not safe. It is at best out of a fear for safety. But could we not all take responsibility for ourselves? If I swim here and I am idiotic, that is my own fault and I will blame no one but myself. The other motivation, of course, is money. And this one I take issue with; swimming outdoors, wild swimming as it has become known, should not be about paying someone else to feel safe. It should not have a cost nor need fancy equipment or loud groups or screaming. It should be about meeting something greater, wiser, older than yourself. About stopping and being, moving through cold silk, literally sinking into a landscape.

There are a few broken chairs thrown into the undergrowth. Those fishermen, with their fancy claims of ownership, have not been taking care. They are taking something from the lake and I, careful not to use body products that might harm, careful to wash my swimwear between swims so as not to spread any weed, mindful of finding a space to get in where I will not disturb muddy banks, am taking nothing.

Heart thudding - I was raised to be a good girl and I would rather not break the rules, but sometimes those rules are stupid - I change and hunker down and slip in. A security camera faces the other way, where in summer a water obstacle course operates. It cannot see me down here, small as I am, a dark head against the water, swimming the other way. It probably is not even on, but its presence is an admonishment; you are not welcome here.

The impossible blue claims me, cold sharp and slicing, edging toward winter. The reeds tower tall above me, bleached tan, thick heads rustling. The silver birch leaves are white against the cold blue sky and the lake is empty and huge and I am tiny and cold and clear. My arms circle ahead of me, ghostly below the surface. I glance down to my toes, tinged blue. I blow out, calm my heart. Stay still, suspended, as water boatmen skate around me.

I get out and dress clumsily, hurriedly. Later, when I take my tights off, I will find rusted leaves pressed to my soles, the pads of my feet, between my toes. For now, I walk on, filled with secret triumph, cardigan clutched tight, dress muddy. I am mostly a bit muddy, a bit smudged. It is my favourite way to be.

Further on there is a drawing of a troll tacked to a tree. There is a wooden sign reading ‘Milly’s Swim’. There are other posters; one of a ghost, one of a witch with good boots. They are most likely for Halloween; I don’t know, I don’t ask anyone. But they exist comfortably here, by the water. Water carries so many of our stories, is so entwined with our myths, from long ago, from right now, from this moment when I, wet and cold and alive, look at a caricature and a sign, a branch bristling below the surface, an impossibly white swan, and wonder if there is a story there.

One thing is certain; there is magic whispering in the depths.