Ravensheugh Sands, 12 May

As I was scrolling through photos in Lightroom, I came to this walk from May 12th and was struck that more than two months had passed. (How is this year passing so quickly?) Looking back through the videos, clips of us walking along Ravensheugh Sands as the sunshine blazed along the shore, gleaming on the water left behind by the tide, I remember how lucky I felt that we were seeing this scene on an ‘average’ Tuesday night. Still early in May, still with the summer ahead of us.

Generally, we’ll have two nights off from driving down the coast in any week. We’d rather be outside, we’d rather be walking, but when Richard’s finished work he doesn’t always want a 60-70km round trip for a walk. Usually we’ll take a Monday night off after the weekend’s longer walks, but, depending on the weather and what else we have going on, sometimes that’ll be a Tuesday night.

And rewinding to this Tuesday evening walk reminds me of the importance of getting out, even when you don’t feel like it, because moments like this are too good to miss. The sofa isn’t going anywhere, but you can never take this light for granted.

And we weren’t alone in thinking this. From these photos it might look as if we had the beach to ourselves, but there were a few other people enjoying this low tide walk, and while you might imagine that there was plenty of space for everyone, Raf has other ideas about the proximity of human beings. So this peaceful walk had a few distinct triggers before we could all settle again further along the shore, away from everyone, and simply enjoy the light and the sound of the sea.

Most of these photos were taken on the way back, when the sun had dipped behind the line of the dunes, bathing this scene in a more gentle glow.