Scolt Head Island

Boxing Day can be tricky in these parts. The whole world goes out for its post Christmas walk, usually on the beach. The drive down to Holkham beach can have a bouncer on duty to sort out the masses. Not for me, and besides, I haven’t got Hunter wellingtons, or a 4x4, nor a flat country cap, or black Labradors, or children called Tristan and Isolde.

With great relish I donned my waders and plugged into my 12 year old self and instinctively set out across the marsh from Norton, crossing Trowland and Norton creeks to Scolt Head. A marsh harrier soared and plaintiff curlews called out. So much of my experience is shaped here, I thought of Wordsworth’s lines, ‘Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up /Foster'd alike by beauty and by fear; ‘ ... It’s always a place to rely on. Pure magic, even on a day which is ambivalent about showing itself before darkness falls again.

It was one of those days where it was difficult at times to see the difference between land and sky. At times it felt like walking into infinity, a vast whiteness. My only disappointment (apart from the inconsolable, irrevocable ones) was not packing a thermos and a bit of my friend’s homemade Christmas cake (soon remedied when I got home!).

Don’t Go Far off - Pablo Neruda

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?