Some places just seep into the silt of your imagination ...
Friday 16th November 3pm Low Tide
Sea mists rolling in from a grey horizon - grey skies swallowing the
town long before dusk. Dark colours on the beach - strands of wrack
livid as purple-black bruises on the green boulders. Gulls squabbling
in a cleft above. The shore eerie as a Susan Hill story,
desolate even with other beachcombers strolling in the gloom. Far off
at the sea's edge, a line of groynes seem a spooky gathering of
figures, watchers stilled with their own grave purpose.
Saturday 17th 11am High Tide
The waters just turned, sea mud slathered onto shingle, the waders
smacking shells on the pebbles. One gull repeatedly swooping up to
drop a hapless mollusc from the air, to hear its crack.
When we return after lunch in unexpected sunshine, the same
sound-scape rises of march warblers, sea cacklers, bird calls curling
up to haunt the foreshore. We crunch over broken razor shells, the
barnacled feeding grounds. Striped and punctured bootprints between
the spiky Vs of claw tracks and tiny fingers of sand, casts poked out
by the worms below.
I follow silvered rivulets looping and unfurling like yarn in the
sand to run into pools of skywater, blue puddles. At the tide-line,
we are mesmerised as ever by the sprawling ribs of a wrecked boat, a
skeleton that might have been Viking wood or gun-boat metal but is
now welded by sea-creatures into their own thing.
As we turn for the harbour, we curve back into the fortified lines of
vivid green rocks, the shambles of the cliffs - shattered red and
white stone. A thunderous blue is moving across the glittering Wash
and we know how quick it changes Hunstanton's skies. Only
minutes from this surf-boom lies our retreat, Cori House. Time
for afternoon tea and complimentary cookies at our favourite B &
B.
Any time of year, this place enchants. Lucky me - this weekend by the
sea was my birthday treat.
