With some surprise we arrived on holiday deep in Roger Deakin’s territory. Suffolk, where the county butts against Norfolk, with the Waveney as the border, rural and silent and the place where Waterlog, his ‘aquatic songlines’ was born. I’ve never set out to swim in his strokes, but felt it fate to arrive in here for a family celebration without really looking at a map. This ‘secret river’, according to Deakin, was a short run through some fields from our base, and on the first morning I convinced Imogen was should do just that.
It turned out the Waveney made us work a little, footpaths clogged with nettles, and then paths stretching always just a little further from where the water should be. The first swim then was short, as we had to be getting back, but the next evening, returning by bike, I had time for a longer visit. The Waveney was completely silent, and it was a lonely and slightly strange swim. To be honest having plotted all day a way to get in, once I was I wasn’t quite sure what to do, so I pottered about a bit and scrambled back up the muddy banks.
In between we pay a visit to Beccles Lido, also on the riverbank, heated but outdoors and full of fun. There’s also a glimpse of the Broads jam-packed with day trippers, a world away from the quiet space of this county line.
A few weeks on and another family gathering I stumbled into through the rush of recent months. While I really should start doing my homework in advance I’m tempted to let others keep booking them if these are the places we end up. This time we were in the Test Valley for midsummer, a shallow, fast-flowing chalk stream beloved of anglers. The river appears as we approach where we’re staying here and there. You hear and smell the streams.
The Ordnance Survey was not playing hide-and-seek this time – a bridge over the Test was five minutes walk through our village. The sun glints off the water as we first arrive, an advance party for several later stone-throwing trips and games of pooh sticks, but this morning was a chance for a just-possible swim in thigh-deep water. The game here is to head under the bridge through the shallower water upstream, then catch the chute rushing under the other side of the bridge, then repeat. The water is cold, the morning glorious.
Like in Suffolk we have it to ourselves. Under the spell of the water, the long days blow gently in the breeze.
Tom Hall: travel, London, other things 