Merrily to Berrow

The forecast was for rain later in the morning, and we hadn't got up as early as we'd intended, and the traffic would probably be trying as it was Easter Monday but we went to Berrow anyhow in search of big skies and sand and light.

Looking back at St Mary's with Crook Peak in the distance

over the golf course

'It's busy there today,' said a fellow dog-walker we encountered as we meandered along the sandy lane to the beach. When he was out of earshot, I reminded a concerned Northerner, who'd clearly forgotten there are no cafes, ice cream vans or toilets for miles around, that we usually had the seven mile beach entirely to ourselves, so busy could be as many - or few - as twenty people. 

St Mary's and Brent Knoll

And so it proved. Four horses, a considerable number of dogs, and maybe two dozen people scattered from the gap in the dunes where the footpath ends to the cars parked at the southern end of Brean.  No wreck of the SS Nornen, though, as it was high tide.

Generally, Cwtch isn't interested in fetching balls or sticks, at least not for long and definitely not when we're somewhere with a lot of distractions, like a field with smells and tussocks and anthills and wooded paths and so on, but when there's just sandflats, she's up for a bit of chasing and fetching ... 

... if not surrendering the ball once she's brought it back.

She's still not keen on the sea, though ... 

... and showed no promise when it came to weaving through the wooden piles comprising the breakwater, like those collies who are amazing at Agility do at speed. 

As we turned back, we noticed the rain was drifting off the Quantocks towards us, an hour later than forecast but still heavy-looking and almost certainly wet, so we headed for the footpath at the gap in the dunes - or at least where we thought it was, because it turns out the wreck is the point I take my bearings from and with the tide high and its yellow buoys removed, who knows where along the beach it - and by extension we - were, exactly. We did find it without too much trouble in the end, though it seemed further down the beach towards Burnham than usual.
 

Then the winding walk back under the brush, through the slacks and over the golf course to the Church and the car.

It was a longer-than-usual drive home through heavy rain and traffic (due in part to a (not serious) accident on the M5), my pockets stuffed with translucent shells and a piece of driftwood like a breaching whale and my eyes full of the not-quite-sealight of the Somerset coast. 

 

Steart Marshes

When we got to the tip on Sunday morning to dump the stair carpet and underlay, the queue was half way down the road so we went for a meander at Steart Marshes instead. 

Warning signs have been a bit of a feature lately.  Steart Marshes, along with the rest of the Severn estuary, have their fair share of mud. 

Birds, too - but as usual, I'd forgotten the binoculars, and as usual, we had a barky dog with us.

This didn't stop the larks from battering our ear drums with their 'Git orf my land!'s. Or the shrieking pheasants in the reedbeds. Or even the raven flying past filled with silent purpose. 

The tide was too high to see the sunken forest that the noticeboard lays claim to.

Though perhaps this is part of it. 

What we did see, always on the horizon, was Hinkley Point nuclear power station, soon to be joined by Point C. The madness of building such a dangerous thing on an estuary with the third highest tidal rise and fall in the world. 

For one thing, there's all that renewable energy which could be tapped. 

For another, tsunamis. 

Looking in the opposite direction, the dark bulk of Brent Knoll, with the distinctive profile of Crook Peak behind it. 

And further along the coast Brean with Brean Down beyond it. 

While ahead lie Steep Holm, Flat Holm and South Wales. 

The blackthorn blossom's been amazing this spring. As striking as whitethorn. 

By now the tide was falling and we had to get home before the tip closed - where there was still a queue to get in. But we'd enough sun and sea to feel as if we'd been on a week's holiday, and that makes even waiting to dump carpet OK.

A Visit to the Summerlands

After Boxing Day's failed assault on Brent Knoll, an ad hoc return visit, this time more sensibly shod for the muddy conditions.

Brent Knoll must be a familiar landmark to anyone who's driven through Somerset on the M5, but it isn't immediately obvious from down below that the summit is an Iron Age hillfort,
   

with multiple ramparts following the contours of the hill.

It was also once the site of a Roman Temple.  

But the best bit are the views, today marred by a nasty yellow stain of smog.  I've done a bit of googling and apparently it's quite a common occurence over the Channel during periods of calm weather, the consensus being that it drifts over from the works at Port Talbot.

Anyway, here we are looking over to Steepholm and Brean Down ... 

... Crook Peak ... 

... Cheddar Reservoir and the Mendips ... 

... a new inland sea between Brent Knoll and Glastonbury Tor ...

... the mouth of the River Parrett and the Quantocks ...

... and down to Hinkley Point (boo) ... 

Look, here's those floods again. (Evidence of recent, not such calm weather.)  No hint of the misery of flooded homes from this distance; just the Summerlands remembering themselves.  

  

As we descended the Knoll, the half moon soared ... 

... and the last of the sun lit last summer's seed heads ... 

... and this winter's ivy.