I’m getting soft, I realise, as I stand looking at the icy waters and contemplating the idea that I may actually have to wade into it to cross the river and get to the path on the other side. The thought of getting my feet wet does not appeal. “Why did the mountaineer wade through the river?” Answer, “Because he’d forgotten that there isn’t a bridge.”
I quite like water, I drink it quite frequently and sometimes, actually bath in the stuff. But that’s a different kind of water from the swirling conflagration I see before me now. You see the water I get on best with is tame water, water that’s been raised in captivity and has good manners. The water I’m looking at now is wild water. It’s the sort of water that has no respect for its betters. The kind of water that will rush into your boots if get too close to a puddle. This is the type of sly water that will seep into your tent when you are not looking, soak your sleeping bag, and then run off giggling when you get up in the morning.
Tame water sits in bottles and does as it’s told. It comes out of the tap at home, when I call for it, and not, when I least expect it. The water I like is far too well-mannered to creep down the back of your neck in a thunderstorm and head for your underwear. The most important difference of all perhaps is that tame water usually turns up at a nice temperature, if you are going to get into it, it’s nice and warm, if you are going to drink it, it’s chilled as you would like.
The problem with this water is that it has just fallen several hundred feet from the Cairngorm plateau and, as far as I can see, it’s not best pleased.
Read more here
http://johndburns.wordpress.com/2013/07/09/a-waters-tale/
