windswept
Yellowcraig, 29 March
When I was looking through photos for my previous post, rewinding through our walks in March, I realised that I hadn't shared this walk from the end of the month. On one hand, it was like any walk here in that we followed our usual route - through the woods, over the grassland, along the dunes, and down onto the beach - but, on the other, this one stood out for the wildness of these scenes (although I realise you can’t tell this from photos) and for the shifting light.
Perhaps you can feel the force of the wind in the second photo below, as Richard and Raf walked down on to the beach below this wide, stormy looking sky. The wind was whipping the sand along the shore as I stood just above, on the dunes, to take this photo, and there was no one else around. And that’s also what I love about these wild weather walks: the lack of other people. Now, as we nudge our way through June (which is passing too quickly, it has to be said), it’s harder to find this beach deserted, although we’ve had some lucky timing over the last few weeks with a few, frankly, unreal walks where the light has been magical and the beach has been empty.
So I’m sharing this to remember the wild and frozen days, days that I love, when you can be layered up against the bracing wind chill, and when everything around you - the marram grasses thrashing in the gusts of wind, the sand blown in patterns above the shore, each new wave blowing spray into the air - feels so vibrantly alive.
And I’m sharing it for the sixth photo below: the view towards Fidra, with the setting sun casting a gentle amber glow over the island through a break in the clouds. That combination of moody cloud and sunlight. If this location, this stretch of shore, is my thin place (read more on this here), then this view is the thinnest of thin places. The point where I think of the lads. And so as we headed up into the dunes on this walk, I paused for a moment, acknowledging this, acknowledging them, and took this photo.
Yellowcraig, East Lothian, Saturday 29 March 2025.
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