Loughrigg is the one we keep going back to. It is not the biggest fell and it does not need to be — it has the terraces, the tarn, and Rydal Cave doing its great cathedral impression around the corner.
The afternoon worth writing down was grey from the start. Cloud sitting low, the kind of steady damp that gets called ‘fine’ by people from round here. The sort of afternoon that would have been miserable anywhere else and somehow wasn’t.
We stood in the mouth of the cave while the rain decided what it wanted to be, shared what was left of the snacks with two dogs who had done none of the carrying, and walked the terrace home as the cloud lifted just enough to let Windermere show off.
No summit to speak of. Nothing conquered. Still the best walk of that month by a distance.
