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losing the saltmarsh

Posted jane -->on 30th Aug 2020

walking at Morston again this morning, I reflected that this kind of landscape is one I won’t find in Fife.

there are sandy beaches with dunes and flowery machair

and rocky beaches

and reed beds in the Tay estuary at Newburgh.

at Tentsmuir there is pine forest behind dunes, with heather and ferns, more beautiful than Holkham’s pinewoods.

but there is nowhere as liminal,

where sky and land and sea segue into each other

with this very special mixture of plants – the sea-wormwood, the sea lavender, sea purslane, shrubby sea blite, sea beet, all the succulents that grow on the salty silt, especially the samphire.

soon to turn orange and red, their autumn colours, along with the mauve and yellow sea aster.

this morning the high wind was in our ears, echoing the surf thundering on the sand banks; curlew and redshank  loudly disapproving, although the nesting season is well over.

tide on its way out

and bladderwrack left behind, attached to its brick holdfast, all barnacled.

the texture of this place is extraordinary; pebble-studded, sometimes slippery with black silt; smooth clay deposits; loose sand;

stinging sharp marram stems; dry paths; wet channels and pools. always the pools that reflect upwards the light of whatever weather happens on the day.

I counted twenty swans in the Stiffkey’s freshwater outflow

and in the marram grass were these tiny ghosts of crabs.

on Thursday there were these ghosts of Covid-19 – disintegrating latex gloves all over the purslane lawns next to the channel

in the sun and wind it’s hard to remember the pandemic, still a rising tide.

in this seemingly empty place, empty except for me and the dog, for half an hour, until we turn back and meet more dogwalkers.

it’s full of life, of course, birds, insects, fish, crustaceans, seals, even hares. I shall miss this place most.

but now I want to paint its looping shapes and its colours, its drama, now when my studio is all packed up and I am busy organising the move, the change of address, and the last skip ……

 

 

 

clearing the sheds

Posted jane -->on 25th Aug 2020

goes on for ever, inner circles of dirt/slip and glaze splash/limewash crumble/cobweb. then one suddenly notices the filthy state of all the windows, never before thought of.

my veg garden is full of sunflowers this year. a very long time ago I grew sunflowers up here. they were a bit bigger that time.

then I had all these sheds pulled down and rebuilt. they were put up originally on the site of an old post mill which is documented by an auction notice from 1845 (on a website about Norfolk mills). the previous owners, the Hudsons, kept seven sows and their offspring, a pony and chickens in them. plus one of the sheds was especially for onions, equipped with shelves. they were fascinating, made with old doors and windows, bits of wood from Reg Hudson’s forestry job, and corrugated iron from when part of Stiffkey army camp was dismantled. a few bicycle chains helped to hold things together, plus an enormous number of nails. but they were leaking when I got them. I definitely bought the house because of the garden and sheds though.

charming as they were, the roofs had gone, and they were unusable in the winter.

this was the first to go, the old chicken shed. I got some nasty flea bites from the straw in there.

the long range of sheds were the last, except that the one on the end became my kiln shed and had some alterations before anything else was done, and basically was the inspiration for the rest.

the big studio was the next to be sorted out, with three panels of double glazing in the roof. I had a contact who worked for a hardwood conservatory company in Aylsham, and he retrieved several useful things which would have been skipped, like the huge doors which are a little twisted and let a bit of cold wind through when it’s from the East, and the roof lights. now I am giving up all this space I have been cleaning it out, and realising that it’s better to do a regular clean and not have a box of pigments lurking under your plan chest, entirely forgotten and the paper packaging eaten by mice. weirdly this shed suffers from house mice, whereas the house only gets visits from wood mice. the local vermin controller did a good job on them three years ago, but then left for Scotland. however, the first to die are always the voles, and if you are using poison it’s not good for our barn owls. Bimba found several almost dead voles in the garden.

on a happier note, going through the old stuff one always finds treasures, like this sketch book from my last year at Corsham.

after two storms the garden is not looking too wonderful, but I had a lovely second flowering from all the roses, and the dahlias are, as seen doing their thing. I don’t understand why the red ones I bought produce these purple flowers.

the wind is currently giving everything a good thrashing, so I am not sure my sunflowers will be upright now.

you can see photos of the long range of sheds being rebuilt in my blog here

 

 

high summer and low tide

Posted jane -->on 23rd Aug 2020

my last summer in Norfolk

this was high tide early in August when it came up high enough for a little paddling at Morston around the last bridge and some of the creeks. the blue reflections

of the early morning sky and the sea lavender were clear and gentle. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the marsh like that before. but it is always different.

the week before I had taken Bims for hr first beach walk since March. lock down and ground-nesting birds had made it impossible and she hadn’t had an off lead walk at all. I had intended to try Holkham, but at 7.30 am there were four horse boxes parked there, so I drove past and we went to Burnham Overy, stopping before the Staithe to park on the corner and walk down the cattle drover track between the marshes. A good half-hour walk before the beach.

up and over the last dune, and there was nobody and the tide was well out.

she had a wonderful time. I was almost tempted to swim.

next week, on the hottest day, Lucy and I took a break from shed-clearing to have a swim and a picnic breakfast there.

the tide was in, and there were a few people around already

and a little spaniel for Bims to play with.

we swam – and it was cold. so long since I had been for a swim – not since our swallows and amazons day on Blakeney point in 2010 – and I found it hard to breathe in the cold water. but I am very glad I did.

Bims is not a swimmer, she’s about ok to get her belly wet, but that’s all. I made sure she got wet before we walked back, it was already hot, and when we got back to the car at 9.30 it registered 35C, much too hot for dogs. she faltered for the last 300 yards of the track, and was a little indisposed overnight. I discovered my car’s AC is not working.

by the end of the next day a sea fret had come down on North Norfolk, and we were spared the worst of the heat.

it wasn’t cold like the usual haar though, 20C. early morning walks made your hair damp.

Lucy went back to Scotland, the skip filled and a list made for freecycling and recycling and dump-tripping. I shall follow her when the sale of the house goes through.