We drove up the coast, first following the estuary in, on winding roads, past rows of grey slate cottages, then turning back along the opposite bank, taking the road that hugged the shore. We had spent so many hours staring across at these hills, drawing their shifting colours, noticing that they always seemed to be in sunlight, and now we could look back at our home bank – the light glinting like hard steel on the water, the pale sand flats in the foreground, the red brick terrace of Mawddach smoky in the half light, hiding below the autumn trees. We turned up, up the coast, past holiday camps and caravan sites, the sea to our left. We saw the long stretch of Harlech beach from above, an endless yawn of sand backed in fast falling dunes. We went to the sea, through the dunes on sloping paths, our feet sliding through shifting sand, till we came out on endless emptiness, the sky big enough to blur the horizon, sand stretching away forever. We walked down to the water, watched its relentless suck and shush. The white bands of sea lace shattered at our feet, pulled back leaving squiggles of white on the newly reflective sand. Beneath us, the sands glittered, a new mirror of sky on the shore. We wandered the wrack line searching for treasure; barrel jellyfish, blue veined and bloated, tentacles up, out, under. Fragile sea potato urchins, emptied out, bumpy to touch, questing hairs still in tact on their delicately patterned skins. Deeply ridged cockles, mirror pink whelks, black fragments of something bored through with holes. Then the skeleton of something big enough to be a mermaid. On the way home we stopped at Barmouth to watch the sun set, but the pink disappeared while we parked. Instead we stood in the half dark, watching the waves rushing in.
Bonnie Radcliffe 