Country diary: Britain's deepest lake offers a trance-inducing swim

Wasdale, Lake District: My girlfriend slips in first, sending perfect circles rippling out across the clear pane of the waterThe surface of Wastwater is so immaculately still that the thought of disturbing it with a swim seems like blasphemy. Earlier in the morning, social media reliably informed me that Wasdale was "overcrowded". In the balmy grip of an August heatwave, Twitter gave the impression that the whole valley had been turned into a chaos of clogged roads, dirty campers and "wrong sorts" leaving devastation in their wake. But here on the shingly shore of Wastwater, on the edge of a wood, we have the place completely to ourselves. Where are the invading hordes? Continue reading...