ULLSWATER is dark and choppy today, the steamer plying the waters only between Glenridding and Howtown as the wind and swell is too great up at Pooley Bridge. Not a day for paddling a canoe! Earlier observation that the road has been whipped clean by wind and rain, and that autumn leaf piles have been scattered to the winds, and that everywhere looks clean albeit grey, leads to grateful acknowledgement that the same wind and rain has swept around and through post-Christmas fresh air seekers who are themselves now feeling clean, and rosy cheeked and not at all grey. Driving home there were “white horses” whipping up the lake surface in Howtown Bay. A windswept, chilly, energising, praise-invoking Ullswater day.