Between Newcastle and Edinburgh, the coast is enough to make me stop thinking. The edges of the country are half-stroked, half-cajoled by the North Sea. If you look down from the train, you can see Famous Five-coves, waiting for smugglers and hiding caves that hide chequered napkins full of sticky cake and flasks full of ginger beer.
Taking photos is impossible as the train speeds past; by the time you've gathered yourself and your camera together the moment is gone, or a rare bit of sunshine leaps onto the murky glass windows, so that all you can see is yourself squinting after what you've just missed.
After a year I stopped trying to take photos and settled down to smile at it. Two hours of watching an endlessly flat yet impossibly choppy sea. It's almost like watching the ships go in and out at Felixstowe, binoculars in hand. But this time, no pebbles. Padded seats instead which are infinitely less comfortable, and make me ache to get outside, down to the shore.
Bus routes are difficult to find. And maybe that's good, maybe it's the anonymity and the safety of a train that makes it nice. Even the old, entrenched, stone-built houses balance perilously on the rocks next to the sea. You'd have to climb a lot of trees and a lot of crumbly hill-sides before you earned the right to be down there beside the waves.
It never really changes; and I'm not sure what I expect to happen in the space of two months. But that's leveling.
There's only one person that ever distracted me from thoughts of coves and adventures. She was a Roald Dahl-grandmother, with twenty-first-century grandchildren. They bashed away on Nintendo DS's, completely oblivious to the sea-view and utterly incongruent with it. She rummaged around in an old plastic bag, dug out some biscuits and cheese and a knife and smiled at them.
That's all she did, all I noticed. It was all nothingness, and all fleeting; but I invite people to the beach a lot and I'm never quite sure they're not-there with me. For some reason, this one time, I'm convinced someone was down there, not-there, with me.
The coast in Scotland stops me.
Taking photos is impossible as the train speeds past; by the time you've gathered yourself and your camera together the moment is gone, or a rare bit of sunshine leaps onto the murky glass windows, so that all you can see is yourself squinting after what you've just missed.
After a year I stopped trying to take photos and settled down to smile at it. Two hours of watching an endlessly flat yet impossibly choppy sea. It's almost like watching the ships go in and out at Felixstowe, binoculars in hand. But this time, no pebbles. Padded seats instead which are infinitely less comfortable, and make me ache to get outside, down to the shore.
Bus routes are difficult to find. And maybe that's good, maybe it's the anonymity and the safety of a train that makes it nice. Even the old, entrenched, stone-built houses balance perilously on the rocks next to the sea. You'd have to climb a lot of trees and a lot of crumbly hill-sides before you earned the right to be down there beside the waves.
It never really changes; and I'm not sure what I expect to happen in the space of two months. But that's leveling.
There's only one person that ever distracted me from thoughts of coves and adventures. She was a Roald Dahl-grandmother, with twenty-first-century grandchildren. They bashed away on Nintendo DS's, completely oblivious to the sea-view and utterly incongruent with it. She rummaged around in an old plastic bag, dug out some biscuits and cheese and a knife and smiled at them.
That's all she did, all I noticed. It was all nothingness, and all fleeting; but I invite people to the beach a lot and I'm never quite sure they're not-there with me. For some reason, this one time, I'm convinced someone was down there, not-there, with me.
The coast in Scotland stops me.
Really enjoyed this, the writing had a real ephemeral quality it. Very transient imagery, it read like a train journey. I liked looking out of the window.
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