It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of a holiday must be in want of a breakdown. And so, with great dramatic flair and the sort of overpacked boot that could clothe a minor Balkan militia, I’m off to the Lake District – a land where Wordsworth wandered lonely as a cloud, and I intend to wander lonely as a curmudgeon, swatting midges and whispering bitterly into the wind.
The Lake District is, of course, stunning. It is also wet. And hilly. And populated by sheep who gaze upon you with a thousand-yard stare that says “I have seen things. Things no ruminant should see.” You haven’t known shame until you’ve been overtaken by a pensioner in kagoule and gaiters while you, red-faced and gasping like a beached carp, wrestle with a stile and your own mortality.
But let’s start with the spiritual. There’s something ancient and untamed about the Lakes, a kind of primeval quiet that both soothes and unsettles. The fells do not care who you are. They are indifferent to your Fitbit goals, your relationship woes, or your existential angst. They simply exist – stoic, weather-beaten, craggy – a bit like God, if God were made of damp granite and sheep droppings. And you find yourself wondering, up there on the ridge, when the wind bites through your third fleece, whether Kierkegaard ever tried scrambling up Helvellyn on a wet Tuesday. Probably not. But I like to imagine him losing his footing and muttering, “Ah, yes. Despair. It really is the sickness unto death.”
And then there’s the psychological. No holiday is complete without a psychodrama. I once went to Grasmere to find inner peace and ended up locked in a cafe toilet having a panic attack over a scone that looked too dense. There’s a strange paradox in the Lakes: the stiller the water, the louder your thoughts. You sit by Ullswater, watching the mist drift like a ghost in mourning, and suddenly every regret you’ve ever had rises like a submerged corpse. “Should I have stayed at home? Was it a mistake to become a funeral director? Did I really need that third jacket from Go Outdoors?” The lake says nothing. It just reflects you, distorted and wet.
Philosophically, the Lakes are a sort of cruel joke. Nature, here, is beautiful in a way that feels mocking – sublime to the point of menace. The trees creak with secrets. The stones underfoot feel suspiciously like they’re trying to trip you. And the isolation, when it hits you, isn’t tranquil – it’s abyssal. As Nietzsche nearly said, if you stare long enough into Derwentwater, Derwentwater stares into you. And sometimes splashes a bit.
Of course, you can’t talk about the Lakes without mentioning Beatrix Potter. She haunts the place like a stern, pinafore-clad poltergeist. Everywhere you turn, there’s a shop flogging Peter Rabbit fudge, or an information board explaining how she saved the Herdwick sheep. And good for her. But when you’re trudging past another sodden pasture with an arse full of thistles, it’s hard not to imagine her characters as slightly more sinister than you remember. Jemima Puddle-Duck, for example, clearly had a death wish. And I’ve always suspected that Mrs Tiggy-Winkle was a metaphor for the futility of housework and the looming spectre of post-industrial melancholy.
Let’s not forget the weather. The Lake District doesn’t have weather, it has moods. Schizoid, operatic moods that change every thirty-seven seconds. One moment you’re bathed in golden light, sobbing at a rainbow and promising to be a better person. The next you’re in a cloud, soaked to your pants, being yelled at by a goose. The meteorological equivalent of mood swings and bad parenting.
And yet, somehow, in spite of the bogs, the blisters, the overpriced Kendal Mint Cake, and the unnerving sensation that you’re being watched by a tragic Victorian ghost in every stone wall – you fall in love. You can’t help it. It gets into your blood. Not unlike the damp.
Because despite all my complaints and the screaming of my knees, the Lake District reminds me that there’s more to life than deadlines and doomscrolling. It whispers something eternal. That the world is wider, wilder, and weirder than we remember. That beauty and bleakness can coexist. That solitude isn’t always loneliness. That sheep have better hair than me.
So yes, I’ll go. I’ll curse the climbs and trip over my dog. I’ll mutter literary quotes to the rain and get sunburn and trench foot in the same hour. But I’ll feel something – raw and real and ridiculous.
And that, my friends, is a holiday.
Of course, no discussion of the Lake District would be complete without mention of the other horror – not the spectral whispers on the moor, nor the bone-soaking fog, but the pungent pong of mass tourism. Ah yes, the sacred rite of the smelly townie, descending upon Ambleside like a herd of Converse-shod wildebeest, clutching overpriced paninis and reusable water bottles, and queuing for artisan ice cream as if it’s the nectar of Olympus. You’d think they were on a pilgrimage to Nirvana via the Beatrix Potter Experience. There’s no silence here. No communion with nature. Only the sound of flip-flops slapping against wet tarmac and a toddler wailing because someone else got the last vanilla-whirl.
Then there’s Windermere – once a mirror to the soul, now more of a puddle of soupy regret. I’ve seen more pristine water in a bathtub after a rugby match. It’s supposed to be one of England’s most iconic lakes, and yet I wouldn’t dip so much as a toenail in it without checking my tetanus status. Algal bloom? More like existential gloom. Boat fuel, septic run-off, and the occasional rogue flip-flop bobbing sadly in the shallows – Windermere is now less Wordsworthian reverie, more Mad Max in Gore-Tex.
And as for the western edge of the region – well, the further you drift toward the coast, the more the sublime gives way to the mildly apocalyptic. There, looming like the final boss in a video game of national decline, sits Sellafield. A nuclear power station that quietly hums away as if no one will notice the glowing crabs. It’s the sort of place that makes you question whether the Lake District is truly a sanctuary of natural splendour or merely a ring of mossy hills attempting to hide the geopolitical equivalent of a ‘do not disturb’ sign.
Let’s also talk about the traffic. The biblical traffic. Queues of cars inching along winding B-roads, driven by people with red cheeks and names like Giles and Pandora, all trying to reverse into dry-stone laybys while consulting their National Trust app. It’s carnage. And when they park, it’s as though they believe tarmac is conceptual. Lines are just polite suggestions. I’ve seen more orderly behaviour at a wake buffet.
And the mess. Oh, the mess. Crumpled sandwich wrappers, abandoned vape pens, dog poo bags swinging from branches like some grotesque pagan offering. You want wildness? Try the bin situation in a random town on a Sunday afternoon. I once saw a raven attempting to eat a Pret napkin while a bloke with a Bluetooth speaker blared Ed Sheeran into the valley. Truly, the gods are dead.
Look, I say this with love – and the bitterness of someone who once paid £4.75 for a sausage roll – but parts of the Lake District have become little more than one big overpriced shopping centre wearing a cagoule. The main towns feel less like rural idylls and more like a fever dream in the gift aisle of a National Trust outlet. Every other building is a fudge shop or a boutique selling scented candles named after fictional sheep. ‘Herdwick Dawn,’ ‘Mossy Flank,’ ‘Ewephoria’ – I’m not making these up.* You can’t move for hand-thrown pottery and enamel mugs declaring you a ‘Wild Camper’ despite the fact you’ve just paid a fortune for parking.
But before I’m accused of hypocrisy, let me say this: I’ve been coming to the Lakes since I was barely out of nappies. I’ve earned the right to grumble. I know the quiet places – the secret tarns, the mossy becks, the ridges where the only sound is the wind and your own laboured breathing. I don’t go to the Lakes to shop. I go to remember what it feels like to be small, windswept, and mildly cursed. And if I have to endure the odd gilet-wearing muppet with a drone to get there, then so be it. It’s the price of pilgrimage.
Wording 