Water log

But all so cold their hearts had grown With care and fashions splendid, The homeless man passed on alone, Faint, worn and unbefriended.

METAPHORICALLY though not, of course, genetically, the lady of this house has something of the Three Little Pigs about her. The third one, anyway.

She believes in the early bird theory, in beating the crowd. Thus it is that by 8.45am on May Day, the sun already bright in its heaven, we are on the shores of Semerwater, ready for a walk.

There are to be cream teas at 11am, brunch with the bikers at one. First, however, a short geography lesson.

Semerwater is not, emphatically not, in the Lake District. Rather it’s half-hidden at the top of Wensleydale, one of only two natural lakes in the Yorkshire Dales National Park – the other’s Malham Tarn – and subject to spelling debate.

National Park notices call it Semerwater, the nature reserve says Semer Water. Either way it’s glorious. Stone Age man lived there 10,000 years ago, drawn by the deer and wild horses at the waterside.

Legends abound. One’s about the huge boulders on the shore having been thrown from Addlebrough in a fight between the devil and a giant; another’s embraced by the poem at the top of the page.

Semerwater, it’s said, now covers the city.

The traveller’s curse drowned it, save for the cottage of a shepherd called Malcolm, who alone gave him shelter. (Malcolm may be an unlikely name for a long-gone shepherd, but it’s the closest rhyme to welcome.) At low water, the tale goes, the spires can still be seen. The story may be slightly apocryphal.

The white-clawed crayfish and, in July, the display of yellow water lilies are more substantial.

The four-mile walk around the lake, on to Marsett and to Countersett, is quite wonderful, the way full of primroses and of violets, the wetlands – pretty dry wetlands, just now – home to ragged robin and to marsh cinquefoil, to rignut and to bladder sedge.

Roe deer casually eye progress. Snipe, lapwing, redshank and curlew are round somewhere.

Some geese fly overhead, exulting because they haven’t to get through the stiles.

They’re what’s called squeeze stiles, perhaps as in tight-squeeze stiles. Emphatically not for the disabled.

Halfway along, the ruined parish church of Stalling Busk comes as a complete surprise.

Built in 1722, still then not the first on the site, it was replaced in 1909 by a Swiss chalet-style church in the centre of the tiny village, known locally simply as Busk.

The graveyard poignantly remains. Nothing explains how they got the coffins down there.

Marsett is wondrous, not just unspoiled, but almost untouched. The post box is Victorian – Big Chief I-Spy used to give squillions of points for those – while a notice inside the malodorous phone box proclaims it a “heritage structure”.

Marsett may never have been thought of it in those terms, but now has chance to buy it, minus telephony, for £1. So far, it appears not to have rung any bells. It’s one of those telephone kiosks where you still expect to find instructions to dial O and ask for Bertha, the problem being that it no longer takes coins.

Marsett, says the internet, is also the only place in the country where caraway seed grows wild after a mischievous child put a nettle beneath the pedlar’s donkey’s tail and the load was spread across the green. The pedlar was probably wild, too.

Most improbably of all, however, is that up stone steps to a battered barn is a door to which the Echo’s royal wedding flag is affixed. However belatedly, they should get a prize for that.

Countersett’s 1.5 miles along the road, past the Old Silk Mill – really? – and again above Semerwater. There’s even a lovely little Friends Meeting House (10.45am, last Sunday.) It’s 11am, anglers standing in the water. The lady of the lake thinks they resemble cormorants. The thought of breakfast keeps nibbling away.

The tea room at Raydale Preserves, in the old school room at Stalling Busk, offers scones, jam and a big pot of good coffee for £6 for two.

It opens only from May 1; the warmth of the welcome suggests we may be first footing.

There are old images of Semerwater frozen solid, cars and motor bikes on the ice, more photographs of clipping and dipping and of village life. There are free walk leaflets and fishing nets and buckets that the bairns may borrow.

“Don’t forget,” says a sign, “that crayfish swim backwards.”

The lady carries off several jars of chutney.

They’re open until October.

Down dale, the road vrooming vibrant with motor bikes, we call at the newly-opened Manor Motorcycle Café in a converted cowshed at Bellerby, near Leyburn, and discover a great many more easy riders.

Incorrigibly, the debate turns to the collective noun for bikers. A throttle? A leather? A cacophony?

A sign urges “Think bike”. They may think little else. Next to the menu are police leaflets reminding that in the past five years 71 bikers have been killed and well over 500 seriously injured on the roads of North Yorkshire.

Though four-wheel travellers are welcome, bikes abound. The only surprise is that the running man exit sign hasn’t found himself a crash hat and a pillion passenger.

It’s clean and hospitable, reasonable food at a reasonable price. The all-day breakfast is £5.75, the best bit the bacon and the worst (as so often happens) the hash brown. The lady has the burger, £2.75, thinks that a good travelling companion, too, has really earned herself a few apples.

We’re home before two. That it’s the kick-off time of the Arsenal v Manchester United game, two hours before normal, is almost coincidental.

That the glorious Gunners see them off is yet further proof of what they say about early birds and worms.

AS today’s Backtrack column observes in more detail, we have been to the cinema – Showcase Teesside, near the junction of A19 and A66 – for the first two in two decades.

Times change. Back then you might get a drink on a stick for two bob. Now two scoops of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream are £3.25 and a hot dog is £3.45.

The ice cream was okay, the hot dog a monstrous rip-off. Dry bun, no onions, no nowt.

More could be said, but as doubtless they observe at Showcase Teesside, you probably get the picture.

THE Black Swan in Middleham, North Yorkshire racing country, is a very nice pub with long tables, new and friendly folk and a welcoming coal fire – it was only mid- May – which smelled like a steam engine footplate.

Ham, eggs, chips and peas were a very reasonable £5.95, a pint of Coke – there was work to be done – £2.60.

It’s not them, it’s almost everyone, but if a pint of mass-produced fizzy pop is selling at getting on £3, is there any wonder that some of us are usually driven to something a little stronger?

…and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew the kind of drink that never runs out.

Infini-tea.