New paintings and regular art updates.
Kneading my knees
Poddling I call it,
Old cat is keen to stay.
I don’t want him to go away.
His life is ebbing
Slowly by
Like a tide moving out
Taking his memory
In its grip.
No more head bumps
No more nuzzles
An empty space expected
Soon.
I see the sea and wish
I could be there to see it.
Sending postcards to
Wish you were there
Friends and family
When will I go back?
It’s not far away in distance
But it is in time
I don’t know if I can go now.
I lost my confidence
Don’t feel safe
Travelling the distance….
The tide is out for me.
I asked for a photo of my beach painting from the lady who bought it (it went to the person who had commissioned it and I had forgotten to take a picture). She was really happy with it. I tried to get that feeling of water washing on and out, flowing over the sand. A few dark rocks sit in the bottom right hand corner and I really tried to get bright sunny colours into it. I found the blue hard to get right, so I used a turquoise hue to get that marine feeling.
Starting a painting of a beach and the sea from above. It’s going to show the surf and the pebbles and sand. I want it to be gentle, a meditation, no words, no footsteps in the sand, just the quiet lapping of water as the waves roll in and out. A peaceful memory as a painting for a friend.
A sea of bluebells
Rippling in the wind
Surrounding an old Court
Like a moat.
Heads nodding on one side
Slim leaves
Shiny and dark green.
The Spring tide comes in
Then fades again.
Year on year
The tides of time
Turn.
In and out
Out then in
Turn about
Sink or swim
Splash and shout
Try to float
water wings
Take a boat
Walk the sand
Paddle in water
Tide turns round
As the moon grows brighter.
A year ago I was at home
A year ago I wasn’t by the sea.
Eighteen months ago
I was home…
I wasn’t by the sea.
No storms, no showers
No tides, no beaches
No lapping waters.
Bereft of waves
Tide out
Gone.
I was talking to a friend who had got caught in the tide coming in at Boggle Hole a few years ago and I remembered our adventure (not).
Boggle Hole is a small valley on the North Yorkshire coast. There is a Youth Hostel there. A couple of miles north is the pretty (but steep) village of Robin Hoods Bay.
We decided to walk along the beach to the village for a drink and evening meal. We knew we had to be back at Boggle Hole hostel before it locked up for the night. I kept saying we needed to go, and eventually we left the pub. We realised if we climbed the hill and walked along the cliff path it would take too long, so we decided to walk along the beach. This is made up of large slabs of rock and sand. The slabs slope slightly with the bits closest to the land dipping down. A stream runs out of the Boggle Hole valley and then north along the beach then out to sea.
It was starting to get dark and the tide was coming in. We walked, then started to jog. The water was now ankle height so we walked further out where the rock slabs were higher. The stream was backfilling as the seawater ran along it, and it was getting very dark. My hubby had a torch, and we decided to go on as we would never get to the hostel in time.
Suddenly the water was coming in really fast. The water was up to my waist and very cold. My hubby was wading thigh deep as he is a lot taller than me. A glimmer of moonshine showed the headland, we just had to get round it and then we would be on dry land! But the rock dipped down as we waded towards the valley. The stream bed was lower and we had to ford it…..
I was chest deep and starting to panic. Hubby was not much better off. Much more of this and we would have to swim… But the ground was rising as we waded. Soon we were out, freezing and soaking wet. We ran up the path to the hostel and got back with minutes to spare!
After drying off we slept soundly and went back down to the beach as the sun rose. The beautiful sunrise to the East was disturbed by a crashing sound…. Bits of cliff were falling off as the sun dried the earth! That part of the Yorkshire coast is notorious for crumbling. The cliffs are mostly blue mudstone called Blue Lias, where dinosaur bones and ammonites among other things are uncovered by winter storms.
We were young and healthy but I have heard of other people getting caught out at Boggle Hole, but it was a memorable visit!
Up the channel between the islands, rushed the tide, waves pushed along the coast, great groynes had been built to stop the long shore drift washing sand along it. Seagulls swooped overhead, floating on the updrafts, silently drifting over the heads of people walking up the salty sands, scoping out victims who had ice creams or bags of chips.
The storm came out of the West, flying clouds darkening, scudding across the sky. The wind rose and fell, rose again, howling. Churning up the sea into foam, like whipped cream, the tops of the waves were being torn off by the winds, waves curled up and over, crashing onto the beach.
A memory of Mount Fuji, the picture of it with crashing waves. That was what it was like. The lighthouse along the coast was flashing, two short flashes, then a gap as the light rotated. Seaweed was torn from its beds, wood and ripped nets were cast up on the shore. The tide rose and swamped the town. Streets were flooded. Life takes note of the raging waves.
This is all in the future. Now there is rushing water, soon there will be storm force winds.
For Sue Vincent’s Thursday #writephoto prompt.
‘Well it was like this officer’ she said, ‘we were down on the beach and saw the cave’. She sneezed, the cold was getting into her bones ‘ it reminded me of the film “whiskey galore” based on the book by Compton MacKensie, so we decided to explore it. We scrambled down the rocks and walked past the waterfall. We went straight in because it had started to lash down with rain, so it was a chance to get under shelter too’
‘About what time was that?’ the policeman had a little hand held computer which he typed into. Not as interesting as a notebook she thought.
‘Around 10am yesterday.’ she pulled the silver space blanket tighter around her shoulders. ‘We are on holiday, we don’t know about the tides’ She looked down at her husband lying on a stretcher The ambulance people had put an oxygen mask on him and dressed the cut on his head. He gave her a little wave.
‘Yes, the tide came in while we were exploring, the cave goes back so far and the water just came up before we knew it. We were in waist deep water, but the waves were pushing us deeper in when we tried to swim out. In the end we found a ledge to sit on…. .’ the policeman was still typing ‘so what happened then?’ ‘we tried using our phones but they wouldn’t work, they had got a soaking, we tried wading out, but by then we were too cold. So we just sat as close together as we could.’
She sighed ‘ we must both have fallen asleep because when we woke up again the tide had come back in. We were exhausted and decided to wait till morning. My husband stood up to stretch and that’s when he cracked his head on the rock’. ‘So that’s when we found you’ said the policeman. ‘It was the landlady at your B&B that alerted us’
‘one thing’ he said ‘what’s that wrapped in your coat?’
‘This? It’s an old bottle of 25 year old single malt’ she smiled.
Mallaband-Brown