A beautiful, inspiring and courageous read.

Beer describes water as a bit of a freak amongst the compound elements. It does things that other compounds find impossible. For Beer, water is something to be loved and feared. As a kayaker, she knows water well and can read and understand it in a way few of us are privileged to imitate.

Combine her water wisdom with her connections to the natural world, the physics, power, and spirituality of water, and the history of our waterways, and you have an exceptional book.

Her stay on the Glenfishie Estate is beyond magical. Her description of water as “the dominant force” on the estate is counterbalanced by her respect for the water and the wilderness through which it flows, also shown by the mildly eccentric people she meets in a lone bothie far removed from the Covid obsession enjoyed by the rest of the country.

The River Derwent

I am lucky enough to live not far from Beer (although I never knew it until I read her chapter on the River Derwent, one of the main rivers in North Yorkshire). I am afraid we take rivers in Ryedale for granted a bit too much (until, like last weekend, the River Rye flooded our village, but with all hands to the pumps, we ensured the water stayed out of the houses).

Beer takes us on a journey down the Derwent from its source to the sea. I love this chapter, with its descriptions of the river and its surrounds, as much as I love the train journey from Malton to York, part of which runs alongside the Derwent River valley by Kirkham Priory (recently beautifully engraved by Anna Matyus). However, I am embarrassed and ashamed about how little I know about the river.

Research using an OS map and W3W enabled me to locate the river’s source from Beer’s description. I hope to walk up there in the summer.

The Mucky Beck

Beer writes most of the book calmly and balancedly. Without being overly evangelical, she allows her love of water and nature to shine through. However, she writes passionately and angrily about the pollution and misuse of our rivers, quite rightly and unsurprisingly for one for whom water has been her life. Her chapter entitled “The Mucky Beck” is disheartening, although good seems about to emerge from even this disaster.

Not many authors can combine the psychology, spirituality and science of the natural world into a single book. Beer does it superbly, and I have no hesitation in giving this book the five stars it deserves.

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Your views are important, and your fellow readers would love to hear your opinion, so share your thoughts in the comments box below, and thank you for your time and generosity.