Woke to skies painted peach, already pale blue at the edges. Sat by the big window in the studio watching how the water shifted, grey rushing in in slices, bands of movement, silky, stuttering. The cloudless sky ripened to rich blue and we went walking. We followed the track at the edge of the coast, aiming again for Barmouth bridge, but once there we turned left, followed the railway tracks towards Fairbourne. The station is a one platform request stop and we were sad the trains weren’t running – to flag down a train driver would be a novelty. We crossed the tracks and came out in marshland. One side of us, sheep bleated away from a herding dog. On the other, the marsh stretched away, wonky jigsaw shapes of land set around puddles still empty of tide. The grassy moss of the tussocks was dark at its roots, wet and floating, tempting to bounce on as if it would rock like a pontoon, or maybe swallow a foot. The path was gravel, higher than the land, an instruction not to stray. We followed it on a circuitous root to the coast. Right near the railway line where we crossed was an open expanse of sand leading to grass blown dunes, but we couldn’t get to it for the bog. We finally got to the coast, climbed a thick sea wall to the beach. Different to the other landscapes we’ve been through, this beach was long, built of boulders, sea softened, smooth, pale. The tide was rushing in in bands of white, each one roughly drawn with a ruler. I crunched down to be close to it, the bank steep, sliding and slipping as I went. I lay paper in the water to soak and a wave rose, rushed in further than any other, soaking my boots.
Bonnie Radcliffe 