When The Rains Stopped

Hello Friends!

Well, it rained; and it rained; and it rained; and it rained. Then it rained some more, but this morning after what seemed a monsoon season long wet weather system, and certainly not anything like June is supposed to be, I awoke to glorious sunshine peeping through my curtains from a bright world rejoicing as the sun glinted and danced around the pristine, freshly washed land.

Today is so beautiful; the temperature is pleasantly warm; the breeze is as gentle as a butterfly's wings beating; the sky is oh! so blue behind the cotton puffed sky; the sea is calm and gently laps the shore.

I had to get out of my cottage. After days of being stuck indoors while the deluge deluged down from above Cabin Fever was setting in. Off I set, turning left at the bottom of the road, and off into the byways and country paths that surround my cottage I strode.

Like Bilbo Baggins, I went out of my front door on an adventure.

A Hobbit walking song is a good idea!

Still round the corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate,

And though we pass them by today,

Tomorrow we may come this way

And take the hidden paths that run

Towards the Moon or to the Sun.

taken from one of JRR Tolkien's poems.

I have not been out on the coast path for a few years, and this morning when I set out it was not my intention to do so as I went walking past horses and cows in the meadows 

with the music of the wild to accompany me as I sought out butterflies and bees going about their business, making honey while the sun shines brightly

Fox Moth

Painted Lady

I have tried to correctly identify, but if you know better, please leave a note in the comments!

On I wandered, following the road as it meandered through the fields, as it narrowed, and passing by some tempting little paths that I mark to return another day

So on and on I went, eventually arriving at the coast. Oh! how magnificent it looked this morning in the pre midday rising sun!

The sea so blue, so calm; the sky so big, so bold, so blue, so puffy cloud strewn and bright! The land in countless shades of green and cliffs in many hues of richest brown.  Clear as the eye can see to the wide, adventurous horizon.

Does it matter which way you turn, which way you look? I don't think it does, do you? It is all majestic in it's splendour.  I stood, I turned, I drank deep draughts of salt sea air, fresh and cool, refreshing, restoring, traveling deep into my being.

The tide is low, far out, and rock pools and caves exposed, for we are on a big Spring Tide cycle right now. How fun to explore the shallows and the nooks and crannies along the rocky shore?

I have seen many repurposing uses for the old GPO red telephone boxes, but this one is a new use to me! A doggie comfort station! How quaint; how sweet; how thoughtful indeed!

Returning to the village, I see yet another view to make me gasp, out across the Cross Square, over the rolling meadows where sheep do safely graze, and away to the vast and distant ocean.

Oh, I took many, many more photos, but they are keeping for another day!

Until next time
Deborah xo

An Early Morning Walk ~ in which daffodils abound

Hello Friends!

The gentle warm days of early Spring have arrived in my Shire so this morning it was easy to decide that housework can wait, and I will take advantage of this glorious weather and all it has to offer.

Following a fortifying breakfast of oatmeal, banana, walnuts and dates, and wrapped up warmer than I probably needed, I set off from the cottage pointing my feet towards the coast.  How glad am I that this decision was made? It was simply glorious out there this morning!

The quiet calm of the morning belies the furious hidden activity as the land awakens from a long slumbering Winter.  Soon, the peace was speckled with a confetti of notes, as a chorus of many birds started singing out their hearts, from chirruping robins, to cawing crows, and the urgent cries of gulls wheeling over the high cliffs.

As the sun pushed its way through the lightly clouded sky, away on the furthest shores of the bay a pale sea mist hides the distant cliffs, softening the milky blue waters of St Bride's Bay.

Closer to shore in the shallows the bright sunlight dances and shimmies across the rippled surface of the sea.

A tractor ploughs the land chugg chugg chugging along, chased by a rather large flock of expectant gulls, hoping for a tasty morsel, maybe a juicy worm or grub, to be uprooted in the freshly churned, velvety dark brown soil.

Sudden movement caught my eye, and some distance away, around a corner came a group of young military men, with packs on their backs, running along, thumpity thumpity thump thump thump on the hard ground beneath their feet. It did not take them long to catch me up, and I stood aside to aid their swift passage. Sweat poured off their brows as they panted their way towards their destination. I wondered how far they had come and how far they had yet to go.  I felt exhausted just watching.

When Spring comes, she brings flowers ~ oh! so many flowers, and today, as the daffodils are reaching their end the coast is starting to flourish with the first early signs of magnificent displays of coastal flowers to come.

There were daffodils, oh, so many daffodils, dotted here and there, and so many different sorts, from all yellow to pale yellow sporting deeper yellow trumpets; trumpets edged with frilly orange coral ruffles; all white petals and white trumpets; short fat trumpets or long slim elegant trumpets. Almost any combination you could think of! Here are a few growing in big clumps along the path edge ~~~

Further along, out on the path, the Spring flowers that our coastline is famous for are beginning to bloom, how this lifted my spirits to see Bladder Campion, Violets, and Sea Thrift all emerging from their long slumber since last Summer ~~~

Soon the flowers will be spectacular as more and more flowers join in the display, with great drifts of pink and white sprawling along the high cliff tops, suspended in a sandwich of blue above and below.

Nature is the best therapy, and I returned to my cottage restored and refreshed, quite ready for a delicious, thirst quenching cup of tea!

Until next time~~~
Deborah

And All I Ask Is A Merry Yarn ~~~

Hello Friends!

Being Welsh, poetry and music are in my soul, but my blood is also awash with salt water, for I cannot bear to be more than a few miles from the sea at any time.

I love the sea, in all her many moods, from the sinister, glassy green swirls amidst the foaming maelstroms of a tidal race, to the calm blue skittering with points of reflected starlight on a summer day, and the raging storms that batter our coastline on a wild and woolly winter's day ~~~ I love them all.

One of my favourite poems, by the English poet and Poet Laureate, John Masefield {1878~1967}is this one ~~~

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

~~~~~

I don't think I have ever lived more than a stone's throw from the ocean. I grew up near the sea, along with the farmland and fields that lie between the village and the coast, my playground was a coastal inlet and the beach; and I was often out at sea, bobbing about on the beautiful, blue briney with my dear Daddy as soon as I was old enough to not be a hazard.  Today marks the eighth year of his passing, and truly, I know not to where those years have flown.

My Happy Photo of me, Daddy, and Skip aboard Sea Crest

We often worked together, he ran boat trips, and for more than half the year he plied his trade ferrying tourists around, and landing them on, Ramsey Island, now owned by the RSPB.  During the winter months, he sometimes fished, but oh! the weather was not kind, and we fretted deeply while he was out in the bay hauling nets and pots, but it made ends meet during the lean, winter months.  I ran the office, and I also crewed. At age fourteen, I could take the boat, single handed {with supervision, naturally} around the island, having learned the tides and reefs, and other perils which are hidden to most.

It was grand, a simple, but privileged life.  When most of my school friends were working Saturday and summer holiday jobs waiting tables, or selling ice creams, postcards, cheap souvenirs and buckets and spades to tourists, I was outdoors ever single day, hanging out with the other boatmen's children, waiting to see if we could hop on a boat for a ride, or splashing about in the sea, eating our picnics of soggy cheese and tomato sandwiches and drinking warm pop. 

There were very few regulations in those days. Yes, the boats had to pass inspection and be fit for plying the waters with passengers on board, we had to have insurance, but none of the overwhelming plethora of health and safety issues that prevail today. Common sense was the order of the day and that was good enough for everyone.  

We sold tickets from the house where we lived in the village, and gave directions how to reach the boat.  We had a large, deep front window where we put our signs advertising, and I took advantage of this.  When I came home in the evenings, after a long day on the quay, I made candles, and jewellery from local stones and shells that I gathered from the beach. I displayed them in the window, and my mother would sell them for me to interested passers by. At the end of my first summer, when we returned to school, and all my friends had spent their money on weekly trips to the nearby town and were now broke, I still had all my money intact, and was the envy of all when I bought a stereo record player {which I still have, and it still works}.

I had the very best of both worlds, and it put the sea in the very centre of my heart and salt water coursing through my veins.  

As I have travelled about, and lived in different parts of the world, I don't think I have ever lived more than fifteen minutes drive at most away from the sea. At times, I have seen the ocean just a few hundred yards from my windows! Now, I can walk to the high cliffs overlooking the wild Atlantic Ocean in a very short while. The sea holds my heart; it is my home. 

Until next time ~~~
~~~Deborah xoxo