It's a hot day up here in Cumbria at last, but the Electricity Board crew replacing the transformer in the field opposite are not overly impressed with the temperatures.

We'll have a power cut for the next six hours so I'll have to do something that doesn't need electricity.

Perhaps I might go for a walk !

Dougal needs his exercise so today would be a good day for a slightly longer walk by the lake.

Planned maintenance . . . but the effect is the same as a power cut in a storm . . . except that the sun's shining.

Looking across to Whiteside and Grasmoor, with Hopegill Head in the distance.

The water is slightly low as we've not had that much rain of late.

No ball for Dougal today so I break the end of the thinner of the two logs and he raced off with it.

He must have like it as he carried it all the way to Ling Crag and back, but he dropped it late in the walk without me noticing,

so sadly I couldn't retrieve it and put on the log pile at the end of the day.

The path gradually drops to the lakeside but then undulates slightly over each small promontory.

The Iron Stone . . . it's a couple of feet deep on this side but about 5ft deep on the other,

so a quick dip finds both Dougal and myself cooling off by swimming around the rock.

Way out in the lake a Goosander and her four chicks take to the deeper water.

The photo is testing my new phone to the limits . . . and it seems to have passed the test, as they were really small in a standard photo.

Rannerdale Knotts and Whiteless Pike on the other side of Crummock Water.

Gradually Ling Crag gets closer, but of course Dougal is there on the beach first.

High Ling Crag adjacent to the Low Ling Crag, the two joined by a curved tombolo beach.

I once called it an isthmus . . . but was corrected by a website viewer (a geography lecturer) who pointed out that this beach is being 'deposited' rather than being 'washed away'.

So now you know . . . remember me if you get asked the question in a pub quiz or geography exam.

The object of his attention was a paddle boarder who had just set off from the beach.

He is making his exercise look quite easily, but I decided on the harder option and chose another swim.

The warm northerly breeze was causing slight ripples so I swam clockwise from one Ling Crag beach round to the other . . . less splashes in the face that way !

Time to head back home, passing this old fence post that still sits on the pebbles after all these years.

The paddle boarder has reversed his direction and is enjoying an easier downwind return to Ling Crag beach.

Always good to have foreground interest in a picture.

Back at the beach, known locally as Sandy Yat . . . it's another "spot the stick" photo.

For 'Sand' read pebbles and for 'Yat' read gate . . . the associated fence of which divided the beach in two.

The local Herdwicks have the right idea . . . tuck yourself in the shade of a convenient tree to stay cool.

They were so chilled out that they didn't even move when we walked by.

Over the Water Board Bridge and up the gated track towards Muncaster House.