One of the many hot days of summer this year and a trip to landlocked Wiltshire. A search for a suitable place to slip into the Avon led to a path through the undergrowth, a clamber down the muddy bank and a cooling swim amongst lilies and demoiselles in the afternoon heat. River swimming always feels a little different to the coastal waters of home; nettles and brambles threaten the route to ingress, lowering ourselves from the top of the steep bank is rewarded with a squelching of mud between the toes and a course is navigated, arms held aloft, through roots and reeds to the point at which one can tentatively push off from the bank into the slow flow of the river. What lies beneath in these waters is unfamiliar and there’s the stirring of memories from childhood; warnings of pike and their needle sharp teeth mingle with tales of the riverbank from cultures and rivers both local and from the pages of stories told. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, The Wind in the Willows and all those folk songs about the Mississippi or the Findhorn. The Wye, the Tay and the Spey, those evocative names for the arteries that carry the characteristics of their banks out to the sea beyond. The water feels different too; somehow it’s smoother and the abrasive sting of salt is replaced by the earthy smell of water that has percolated through the fields and woodlands that border the river. The source of the Avon is in Gloucestershire and hasn’t travelled far by the time it reaches Bradford on Avon. It’s journey will then take it winding through Wiltshire, the cities of Bath and Bristol and its industrial hinterlands before it eventually spills into the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth, a different river to the one that was born in the Gloucestershire countryside.
