Portents and pranksters

Friday 13th September

The verges are trimmed and the hedges are trimmed but the full beauty of autumn has not yet landed. It seems churlish to say that we are surrounded by quite dull green, but at the moment, the lanes and roadsides appear stuck in a rather uninteresting inbetween.

The bright shouty new growth of spring is a distant memory, summer flowers all seeded and we’re holding out for rich and delicious yellows and reds and browns. Blame the wet winter; tree roots that suck up floods of water have the strength to hold on to their leaves.

There are berries, but not the abundant big and blousy ones that drip off the trees like diamonds off a second wife. September isn’t blazing yet.

It’s Friday the 13th, packed with portents. There’s a Norse Myth about the thirteenth god turning up late for supper. It doesn’t end well. This morning’s first portent is a muddle that ends in car-less Cousin and I giving Bikini the pip because we’re late to meet her when she’s giving us a lift.

It’s bright and chilly. We are in winter-wear. Robes and fleeces provide insulation against a ten degree beach with a moderate breeze from the north north west.

The flag is straight out. No one has told it about ‘moderate’.

On a positive note, the sun is shining brightly. Tip your face towards it and you can actually feel its warmth. By this point, I feel a little like the sun is playing the part of the jolly friend, all jazz hands and grins, in the Friday 13th prank. 

My second portent is that I am stuck on the phone on a bench overlooking the sea. A nice bench, a picnic table in other circs, the only place in the area in which it’s possible to get a phone signal. That’s one of the best things about the bench, it limits phone use. Enjoy the beach, take a picture, shut up. The bench therefore has its uses and it isn’t a bad place to be other than when you’re there when your friends are swimming.

Some of them are swimming. The sea this morning is a slippery shape-shifter. From my position, with the uncalled-for panoramic view, someone has whispered to the sea that it’s Friday 13th, a day in which mighty powers can have some fun.

At once, it is high gloss pewter polished to the tenth (or thirteenth) degree with stunning silver highlights, pulling back sweetly from the first high tide at six thirty. For a generous moment level and glossy and beautiful and still. Until. Until an enormous wave rolls in, courtesy of the tail-end of a weather system far, far away.

Surfers think north westerlies are swell, apparently. They deliver rideable waves. In my dreams, I see myself as a surfer. Sadly those dreams have yet to be shared by the sea. It’s beautiful, unless you’re standing at the edge of the water, watching it making its smooth way towards you at head height.

By the time I arrive, people are changing back to dry clothes. Rupert‘s mum declined the waves. The Canadian of course did not and has a happy glint in her eye.

I’m changed for swimming and standing at the water’s edge, watching. Nobly, the Boatbuilder and our Lawyer offer to come back in with me. We walk further.

‘The ledge is deep today.’ Together, we look at the part of the sea bed that is usually a strip of soft sand looser than that which surrounds it. It’s easily a trip hazard when you’re getting back to the beach. Accidentally stand on it and your foot descends further and faster than expected and you lose your balance. I’ve fallen for it countless times.

This morning, watching from sand that will in a moment be underwater, it’s a deep duct-like ledge with water pouring over it as if a great flood is subsiding.

Together we look and we look until the still calm sea isn’t still and calm at all. It reveals itself to be full of surprises.

There have been enough surprises this morning. I didn’t want to add to them by being caught by a wave, pushed over and in to what feels like a sea-water washing machine, rolling and turning until it rolls out. I’m standing with sea water above my knees. I decide that that counts as swimming. Today at least.

I wish I was as brave as my friend. I’m glad that this morning I am not.

Pied wagtails were playing on the shingle at the back of the beach.