Winter Water at Spitchwick

Shadows

Rachel, Honey and I meet for a late afternoon dip at Spitchwick, and are pleased to see another, bikini-clad wild swimmer whom we don’t know.  We do know that the water has chilled, but nothing can prepare us for the shock of the winter-level temperature today. The autumn twigs and leaves are piled high on the riverbed, and you might think the soft duvet underfoot would help with the cold;  you’d be wrong. It’s like lying naked on the steel floor of a commercial deep-freeze. Poor Rachel slips on a hidden rock and goes straight under, inhaling the chilled water and coughing for several minutes. Eventually we are able to pootle with staccato strokes through dark water in which golden leaves are suspended. Low sun adds dreamy magic.

Freezing Dreamy Magic

A Midsummer Night’s Wet Dream With All Kinds of Shenanigans

Faerie Rachel Doth Not Take the Officer of the Law With Due Seriousness

Cast:

Faeries Lesley, Jane, Tara, Tara’s Mum, Debs, Michael, Charlotte, Rachel, Geoffrey, Helen, Lynne, Oakley and Honey.

An Officer of the Law

Bottom

A Young Surfer Dude

A Mostly Silent Man But For Fair Swearing

Faerie Lesley Wafts

Act 1

New Bridge Car Park, close to the great river Dart, on a Mizzled and Gloomy Midsummer’s Eve. Water Faeries are wafting and gathering wild flowers and ivy for to adorn their faerie heads. Wings are sprouting willy nilly.  A chequered Vauxhall Estate of yellow and blue enters stage left, driven by an Officer of the Law. The Officer of the Law winds down his window and beckons to Faerie Rachel. 

Officer of the Law: ‘Fair spinster, I think you be what I seek’

Faerie Rachel (a Faerie of a certain age, posing appealingly): ‘What, Faeries in the woods?’

Officer of the Law (scoffing openly): ‘No, fair spinster I seek the Ravers of whom I have heard tell from the great Baron of these Woods, who in his turn heard this tale from a former serf who overheard some yoofs discussing it in the local hostelry, the name and location of which I have forgot’.

Faerie Rachel: (pouring a cup of elderflower tea and dropping in a couple of soluble Es which fizz and emit an enchanted greenish glow) ‘Verily Officer I know not who or what might be this Raver of which you speak. I am Faerie Rachel, a Faerie of A Certain Age and these be my Wild Band of Merrie Water Faeries. I have not raved for many Super-Moons, and indeed may normally be found tucked up in my Faerie bed at so late an hour as this’.

Officer of the Law: ‘Faerie Rachel I see those eyes are ringed with darkness, and so I presumed you had not seen your bed for many Super-Moons indeed. I had not clocked that you was a Faerie of a Certain Age, since you has tresses the colour of the sun what shines over the Moors in the early morn, and a face near free of crow’s feet and other give away lines’.

Faerie Rachel: (attempting to scowl through her botox and lobbing a handful of Faerie Dust through the window of the car, which Faerie Michael blows off-course towards Spitchwick): ‘What art thou trying to say, oh Officer of the Law? Dost I look like a Raver? A hex on you! I wish you a particularly horrible and endless night shift involving a gaggle of drunks and a complicated mix-up over a parking ticket’.

Faerie Jane: (Now changed into a winged wetsuit and flirting shamelessly) ‘Have you seen my beautiful Faerie wings, oh Officer of the Law? Don’t you wish to stroke them? They have glitter on them and everything!’

Officer of the Law: (Sticks the blues on and drives away, muttering) ‘I fear tis not safe for a youthful and lone Officer of the Law in these enchanted parts…’

Faerie’s Tara and Tara’s Mum

Act 2

The Car Park at Spitchwick.

Faerie Lesley: (Wafting yards of netting) ‘But soft, I hear drunken mooing, has yon Faerie Rachel been Faerie dusting again’?

Faerie Rachel: ‘Forsooth I mooed when I gave birth, yet verily there was no such dust around in those days of yore, when we had simply gas and air. You may be mistaken that my Faerie Dust has blown astray, fair Water Faeries’

Bottom: (wetting himself, swigging many quarts of cyder and mooing some more) ‘I know not where I is,  mine friends is gone away with the Faeries, take me home, pleeeeeeease, and bring me my beautiful cow for I am truly in love!’

Faeries: ‘We be going for our Midsummer’s Eve swim in yonder great river, but verily several of us might fall helpless in love with you, dear Bottom, for tis an enchanted eve this eve and we are dressed to Rave. Though of course yon dark and dangly depths of enchanted water be most chilled, and forsooth will dampen the ardour of all but Faeries Jane, Michael, Charlotte and Deb who are attired in Faerie Neoprene With Glittering Wings’.

Bottom: (Sobs, moos yet more) ‘I know not what I be doing, I know not where be mine friends, I know not what I be doing, I love this fair cow, see her lashes and her brown eyes like the pool in which we shall swim!’

(Faeries flutter away towards the pool, wings dripping in the mizzle)

Faeries Michael and Charlotte

Act 3

The Pool at Spitchwick

(Faeries waft up and down the pool, Faerie Honey frolics with a ball beneath the bank, Faerie Oakley steals Faerie Honey’s ball)

Enter Young Surfer Dude, friend of Bottom, attired in orange board shorts

Young Surfer Dude: (Slurring and posing) ‘Hey, so be you Faeries of Wild Swimming? What be your purpose in these beautiful parts? Know you why we be here, me and my friends, who have vodka and stuff and a boy-racer car with twin exhausts and a thundersome box and are camping in these enchanted woods on this enchanted eve, and did you know I can verily jump into yon pool from the very very pinnacle of yon cliff, which is of course but a quarter as high as the many cliffs off what I have leapt in my time, what with me being verily a yoof and a surfer, and also I hail from the magic land of Kernow’?

Faerie Helen: (raises eyes to heaven) ‘Yoofy Surfer Dude I am interested not in your great feats of manhood, but rather what you may have secreted in yon board shorts. Be there flap jacks in there’?

Young Surfer Dude: ‘Faerie Helen just you watch and you will be complete unable to resist my displays of manhood’! (Dips toe into water, undips toe, runs away)

Faeries: (Guffaw, swim up and down, chatter and giggle, waft a bit more, float some flowers downstream)

Enter Young Surfer Dude again, wearing a 7mm wetsuit. (Leaps into water, climbs cliff, leaps from top, over and over again sending giant waves of enchanted water across the pool).

Faerie Lesley: ‘Dratted Surfer Dudes, now I am wetter than ever and mine sunflower has bedraggled’.

Faerie Jane: ‘Forsooth I am most grateful for these wings, what have glitter on them and everything, for otherwise I should verily have sunk without trace’

Faeries Charlotte and Debs: (faint with admiration for the enormous size of the enchanted waves, and discussing the purchase of surf boards on ebay) Wooo Hooo!

Faerie Helen: (screams) ‘Shark’!

Weaving Watery Spells

Act 4

Faerie Michael: ‘Forsooth, I am without neoprene and my suit of clothes has vanished! What enchanted woods are these? I and Faerie Charlotte shall depart for the lovely hostelry of which we have heard tell, though we know not where it be’

Bottom: (Some miles away) ‘Moooooooooooooooooo! Moooooooooooooooo!

Silent Swearing Man: ‘Shut the f**k up!’

Surfer Dude: ‘Silent friend let us take off to our hidden tent, and let us make merry with this bottle of vodka while leaving Bottom to moo. For verily he is driving me away with the Faeries also, and besides he has a new friend who is a rather winsome cow, perchance a belted Galloway. And I rather fancy mine chances with you…for your swearing hath aroused me something rotten.’

Exit stage left, pursued by a Mooooooo!

Fairies: (Drying off with Faerie towels and refuelling on flap jacks and gin-soaked lemon drizzle cake) ‘Let us go to yon hostelry which be up yon hill, past Bottom’

Bottom: ‘Mooooooooooooo! I be lost, oh take me home dear Water Faeries for I cannot be alone no more in this enchanted place and now mine cow have departed while I were somewhat indisposed and wetting mine pants some more’.

Faeries: ‘Bottom, move not and we shall find your friends for you’ (Faeries seek and search in vain, for at least a minute, before departing for the local hostelry)

Watery Faeries With Wings and Glitter and Everything

Act 5

The Local Hostelry

Faerie Tara: ‘Hail fine Land Lord, furnish me at once with a hot chocolate as big as my face, for I no longer care about the events of this enchanted midsummer eve. I need chocolate!’

Faerie Lesley: ‘Mine be a quart of your finest ale, mine landlord, and make it fast since the witching hour is almost upon us…’.

Faerie Tara’s Mum: ‘I worry about poor Bottom, all alone and with his loves departed. What should we do…’

Faerie Jane: ‘Fear not on this enchanted eve, for I have bewitched the Officer of the Law and have insisted that he shall seek and seek and seek through the mizzzle and the hawthornes and the crab apples till he be soaked through and chilled to them there bones. How dare he be so rude to poor Faerie Rachel of a Certain Age.’

The clock strikes midnight and the Water Faeries melt away…The Officer of the Law seeks Bottom endlessly in vain over a long and enchanted night, before eventually falling into a dreamy sleep after a lunch of a stale Co-Op donut and a bag of crisps.

All returns to normal on the enchanted Double Dart, where Water Faeries play and yoofs and Old Dears Rave…

Bedraggled Sunflower

Saturnalia at Spitchwick

Driving over the hill with the low Christmas sun in front of us, we watch as illuminated swags of rain sweep down the Dart valley like angel hair on fairy lights. Honey and I squelch down the footpath from New Bridge, drowning in the roar of creamy flood water. At Spitchwick the river is dark copper and slides like a serpent around the bend. I whip my clothes off and get straight in. The cold bites as I swim upstream, barely making any headway against the current. This is a day for sticking to the slower water by the near bank. As I dry off, we meet a Newfoundland-Collie cross, who leaps in after sticks. The picture I took shows splashes of water like angel’s wings. Happy Saturnalia, wild swimmers!  

Bats at Spitchwick

Early evening on a misty, drizzly autumnal day. No glorious sunset;  just a patch of glowing white between pewter clouds that look heavy enough to sink with the sun. We creep in to water that manages to be both clear and the colour of an oil slick.  The bottom is softly carpeted with fallen vegetation. Midges nip at our faces.

The river is very chilly indeed; ice-cream neck hits and I swim as hard as I can upstream to heat up. Finally I’m suffused with a warm glow which starts in my bones and seeps through to my skin. Bats flitter past, flashes of dark above black water. The last notes of birdsong fade into the night.

Jackie swims with a decorated umbrella, while Matt and Queenie wear Union Jacks on their heads. Batty people from Torbay.

Spitchwick Sundown

Honey and I crawl through the dismal Dartmoor landscape, drained and limp with the fog that has smothered us all day.  As we descend into the Dart Valley our view is suddenly brighter. I look up and see a patch of blue appear through parting clouds. Plum, Honey and I climb into a watery world illuminated like a Medieval bible. We swim against the chill current and bathe in sunbeams which reflect and ripple across the rock face above us like a river of light.

Lower Spitchwick

Cold, windy, dank and grey; summer on Dartmoor… Faye and I enter the dark metallic waters of the Dart in the pool above the Cresta Run. Chilly shivers travel through my skin and I want to get out. Looking up it’s a shock to see the summer greens of ferns and trees. I force myself to swim, hating the creep of cold as my hair wicks water. Gusts of wind ruckle the surface as they pass. We clamber down the shallows towards the corner current, its passage marked by little white-capped moguls.  I feel my body being picked up and flung along as I swoop round the bend.

Evening at Spitchwick

Warm sun, chill breeze, cold river…ice-cream head! The surface is smooth like liquid brass, reflecting acid-green leafed trees. Occasionally the wind catches the water which wrinkles along its path. As I swim I hear birds, the ripples from my stroke and plinks and plops as fish jump for midges near the bank. The sun is low and catches my eyes, sparkling from damp eyelashes. My skin burns with the cold.