We walked past our swimming bay, where the water was still low, tangled bubbles of weed in huge clumps in the mud, and take the footpath that goes up the neck of the estuary. We go through boggy land, tunnels of bracken, detouring away from deep mud through side paths in the long grass. Turning at a gate, we come to a long tunnel of small trees, their spindly branches arching over us, knitting together against the sky. Then we see water again, in the distance. First there are sand flats, huge lumps of mud sprouting grass and tall reeds, evidently surrounded by water at high tide but empty now, grey mud exposed, pocked and damp. We walk beside it, looking out to where the water shines. The sky is pale and the water glitters grey blue, a land built of water softened shapes. Everything here is transient, changeable. There are oak leaves beside the path, brown edged with a yellow rim and green centre; all the seasons in one. We see a curlew take flight, hear the squeaking calls of oystercatchers. We pass a bush with hot pink clusters of petals surrounding a bright orange centre – a spindle bush, theorised by some to be what sleeping beauty really pricked her finger on. It is a very different princess who snags herself on a bush to one who is injured spinning in a shut away room. Across the estuary there are hills, brown and rust and green and gold, colours shifting as the light moves.
Bonnie Radcliffe 