Wide silent sky. Still warm air. Having followed a country footpath across miles of open farmland you reach a stony bank and, like a natural magic trick, it leads you down onto a deserted, shingle beach, animated with its own soft crashing waves.
Nobody's about. Really, nobody. It's a stretch of beach between Rye Harbour and Winchelsea that's somehow, perhaps for you, kept itself perfectly deserted. It's the sort of place you've been longing for. Now all you need is time.
You find yourself scanning the horizon. Surely somebody must be about on this warm October Sunday. Layered shingle berms stretch out to the left. Pristine water out ahead. A heavily laden timbered groyne to the right, bearing all the weight of the longshore drift. There is really no one here. Except for a distant calling seabird.
Scrunching forward, and a few yards from the wetted shoreline, you find a patch of shingle, fold your coat, and sit down to listen to the waves. They're so close, and yet so soft. So full and detailed, as they curl, and fold, and crash onto the beach. Soft crashing. And soft sifting textures, of shifting shingle. You wonder about time. If it's been five minutes, or ten. But your hands are resting now, feeling the cool stones. There really is no need to check. No need to move.
Derbyshire gales blow away the cobwebs
Night rain falls on a Peak District moorside (part 2 - sleep safe)
Bucolic contrasts under low cloud - the land between Sandy and St Neots
43 Tidal water mirror still - a sound view from Canvey Island
42 Night beside a stream in Wales (sleep safe)
Gulls at low tide along the River Thames
Low tide on the Thames Estuary at Benfleet creek (no loud noises and best with headphones)
Jackdaws and flooded winterbournes - watery emptiness
Tawny echoes in the cathedral of trees (sleep safe)
Rain in Abney Park
Wind over the Bridgemarsh Marina on the Dengie Peninsula
Suffolk Wood part 5 - the hour to 1am (sleep safe)
Wind on water under an equinoctial sky - on the Dengie peninsula Essex
Champagne shingle on Felixstowe beach
Folkestone Warren - Spitfire flypast then coastal murmurings
31 Late summer heat bathing under splendid trees - peace in the Clinton-Baker Pinetum
30 Wind and time passes in the Forest of Dean
Trains, planes and estuary birds
Night rain falls on a Peak District moorside
Dead of night beside a lake in the Lee Valley Park - sleep special
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