butters
High on a Hill
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2009
- Posts
- 85,713
i was planning on traveling up to visit with friends for a few days, but earlier this week she called me from the hospital where they'd just spent all night getting her hubby sorted - a broken wrist and broken collar bone, left and right - since her mum and dad had decided to come stay to help while he was incapacitated (her mum's something akin to a dementor) i decided to give it a miss this time and go visit later.
so
yesterday, around midday i decided to grab my jacket and head off to the train station, and caught a train to the coast. the weather was absolutely perfect for me - cool but not cold, bright, a few puffy clouds, a little breezy.
i had the most relaxing time. the light, the water, the tide being fully in as i arrived and leaving the beach and flats bare but shimmering, not too many people, the walk out onto the long pier (1.33 miles) and the bowl of blue sky all overhead and around me ... sigh. as the sun began to dip and the tide receded, the exposed sand banks looked as if someone had varnished them. there were intricate ripple-marks like the patterning on boot soles... but best of all, apart from the breeze lifting my hair and my spirits, were the colours
the vast expanses of blue reflecting sky, the buff of the wet sand, and as the sun dipped the transitory moments as the iced-blues turned to pinks and lilac, a pale peach flush on the western horizon and the deeper blues as i looked out across towards norway and sweden. a great ship out there lit up as its huge upper decks of white blazed a neon pink
and i just wanted to capture it all. paint it, record it somehow, write a poem to keep it. my phone's battery had died before the best of the show, but i managed to get a few shots earlier in the day. i don't think i could ever capture what i saw, not to do it any justice. to try would only be a frustrating exercise, especially considering the changing nature of the piece as i saw it.
i felt so enormously happy out there, alone on the pier (well, alone except for the odd few people passing by), and felt as if i were in the very center of all of that wonderfulness. of course, that's only because all points radiated out from where i was standing, in my viewpoint. i'm not ashamed to say that tears of real pleasure brimmed and spilled as i turned full circle on the wooden decking, arms out as the soft-mottled backs of various sea-birds hovered close to the pier before sweeping off to chase their fleet, dark reflections across the flats.
it's the best experience i have had in ages. i truly wish you could have all seen it, felt it, been as filled to the brim as i was with its beauty.
so
yesterday, around midday i decided to grab my jacket and head off to the train station, and caught a train to the coast. the weather was absolutely perfect for me - cool but not cold, bright, a few puffy clouds, a little breezy.
i had the most relaxing time. the light, the water, the tide being fully in as i arrived and leaving the beach and flats bare but shimmering, not too many people, the walk out onto the long pier (1.33 miles) and the bowl of blue sky all overhead and around me ... sigh. as the sun began to dip and the tide receded, the exposed sand banks looked as if someone had varnished them. there were intricate ripple-marks like the patterning on boot soles... but best of all, apart from the breeze lifting my hair and my spirits, were the colours
the vast expanses of blue reflecting sky, the buff of the wet sand, and as the sun dipped the transitory moments as the iced-blues turned to pinks and lilac, a pale peach flush on the western horizon and the deeper blues as i looked out across towards norway and sweden. a great ship out there lit up as its huge upper decks of white blazed a neon pink
and i just wanted to capture it all. paint it, record it somehow, write a poem to keep it. my phone's battery had died before the best of the show, but i managed to get a few shots earlier in the day. i don't think i could ever capture what i saw, not to do it any justice. to try would only be a frustrating exercise, especially considering the changing nature of the piece as i saw it.
i felt so enormously happy out there, alone on the pier (well, alone except for the odd few people passing by), and felt as if i were in the very center of all of that wonderfulness. of course, that's only because all points radiated out from where i was standing, in my viewpoint. i'm not ashamed to say that tears of real pleasure brimmed and spilled as i turned full circle on the wooden decking, arms out as the soft-mottled backs of various sea-birds hovered close to the pier before sweeping off to chase their fleet, dark reflections across the flats.
it's the best experience i have had in ages. i truly wish you could have all seen it, felt it, been as filled to the brim as i was with its beauty.
