New Year on the Severn: Brean and Beachley

We decided to walk a little further afield on New Year's Day, as it was New Year's Day and seemed to need observing slightly differently from all the other days during this pandemic. Our chosen destination was Poets Walk at Clevedon, as we hadn't been there since just before our old collie, Ted, died, 16 months ago. Unfortunately when we arrived, there was nowhere to park as everyone else in the locality seemed to have had the same idea. I'm quite sure they can't all have been poets.  

Anyway, we headed on down the M5 and ended up in Brean, where we had a wander on the beach. Cwtch didn't seem that disappointed.  

I decided to climb the steps that lead up the side of Brean Down to take in the view and see how the New Year might pan out. It was quite a haul.

On the way up I stopped to watch a raven, which was being mobbed by three crows. And the view at the top - here looking over to Uphill - was worth the effort. 

Back at sea level, I spotted an unseasonal pot marigold, which, like the raven, cheered me. They - the marigolds - always remind me of my grandmother's garden. 

My walk with Cwtch and Son the Younger today started directly under the old Severn Bridge at Beachley. 

The last time I was there, three years ago, we started to walk around the promontory that separates the Severn from the Wye, but the tide was high and the afternoon short, so this time, we started straight away, without fossicking on the shore for fossils first. 

We decided to heed the small papery sign written in felt pen, rather than the big red one.  

I couldn't make it out, but there was definitely a raven up in the western pylon of the Aust Severn Powerline Crossing.

Once again we were thwarted in our plans, though, as the path around the promontory was flooded at a point where ubiquitous brambles made it the only route round to the River Wye.

We turned back, vowing to return in a drier season.

St Twrogg's Island

View to the new Severn Bridge

We decided to return to the car along the beach, passing some interesting geology.

This involved scrambling over rather slippery rocks. Unfortunately my walking boots didn't have very good grip - nor I proprioception - and I fell over a couple of times. (It was quite funny, though.)

Back at the bridge, a passer-by offered to take photo of the three of us together. A rare capture of the photographer.

Happy New Year.

Up North, Down South and Good Luck Poo

With the lifting - just a little - of the lockdown, Son the Elder arranged a trip for us to Minsterworth, just outside Gloucester, where he needed to pick up a purchase from off eBay, and to Gloucester Cathedral, where he was meeting his friend Tom for the handover of acting DVDs. It was only going to be a flying visit, but I was glad of the chance of getting out of Bristol for a couple of hours, as well as giving my new-to-me car a bit of a run. 

So here's Gloucester Cathedral ...

... and some ghost signage on Berkeley Street ... 

... and 99 - 101 Westgate Street, which building dates from c1500 and is said to be the last lodging of Bishop Hooper before his execution by burning at the stake in St Mary's Square on 9th February 1555.  

When I got back to the car, I noticed a bird had christened my car with some poo, which I took as a good luck sign. 

Today I was off again - this time with the Northerner and Cwtch the collie - to Uphill, where I was due to get my second dose of Pfizer vaccine at Weston General. Immediately afterwards, we headed to Berrow beach so that Cwtch could get her first taste of the sea proper (her recent visits to Portishead notwithstanding). 

Upon arrival it was clear that the powers-that-be at Burnham and Berrow golf club had been brandishing industrial-sized secateurs and diggers during the enforced shut down, much like at the local golf club.  For a start, there was a pill box I'd never seen before ... 

... and much of the lovely tunnelling footpath through the dunes had been ripped open and the sky let in.

The pussy willows lining the reedbeds were lovely, though, and the ascent and descent to the beach was as exciting as ever. 

As luck would have it, the tide was so far out that Cwtch still didn't encounter the sea ...

... though she did get her first taste of the beach. 

We didn't walk too far as the Northerner has been recovering from something narsty (albeit not in the woodshed) and I was being careful on account of my jab. It was enough to be at Berrow with our eyes on ... well, more or less the same horizon as up the meadow, actually, but from a very different angle. 

It was sandy enough to walk out to the wreck of the SS Nornen too, which was as photogenic as ever, with no need to dodge the sinkinny sands and mud. 

A different dog that is ours with us on this visit, though - and she couldn't quite contain her surprise and delight that such a place exists, even if the sand looks better than it tastes and the water is salty.

There are even sticks, which are one of Cwtch's favourite things. (Ted was only interested in balls.)

Time to go back through the sand dunes and around the marshes ... 

... and past the little white bench with its views of Brent Knoll and Crook Peak ... 

... and through the churchyard of St Mary's with its cowslips and dead nettles ... 

... to the car which once again had been anointed with good luck poo. 

I did start to wonder if you could have too much good luck poo, so when a muck spreader pulled out in front of me between Berrow and Burnham-on-Sea, I decided to keep well back, just in case. 

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside

I thought I had a good chance of getting vaccinated fairly quickly because of being a support worker for my son, but as it turned out, it was working in a special school that got me the chance of a slot first. And since Southmead Hospital and the BRI are booked up for months in advance, and I clearly can't go to super vaccination centre at Trashton Gate under even life or death circumstances (it's a tribal thing), I happily booked myself into the hub at Weston General. Hooray. A shot of Pfizer-BioNTech and a walk along the beach at Uphill with the Northerner and Cwtch, who would be getting her first chance to see the sea, all legal and lockdown be damned.  

Except that our internet router stopped working on the weekend and its replacement didn't work either and the earliest the engineer could get round was ... yes, the same time as my vaccination, and so I found myself making my way down to Uphill Slipway on my own. And it was raining and misty, and this being the Severn estuary, the tide was so far out I couldn't have seen it even if it had been fine. 

But the first thing I saw as I crossed the little car park (closed) at the top of the beach was a tricoloured border collie puppy, and then I saw a lovely old merle collie, and then a beautiful black and white one that made me think of Ted, and I thought about how lucky I am to have had my first shot and to have another one booked for April, when it might be sunny and our own tri collie pup might get her first run on the sand and mud of Weston. 

Back at home the Northerner was still waiting for the engineer to arrive, but when he did magic was performed and our running speed has apparently increased from 2 to 60. Or maybe that's because along with the Pfizer vaccine, I now have Bill Gates' microchip in my arm. 

A Poem for World Poetry Day 2019

Every day is World Poetry Day in our house. I love the fact that poetry is such a big, comforting, startling thing in our lives. But today is the official World Poetry Day that only comes once a year ...

... and to mark it, I'm posting my poem 'Oystercatchers', which recently won the 2018 Plough Prize Short Poem Competition. (Still haven't quite integrated that information into my life.)

And also some photos of Uphill Slipway in Somerset, which is the landscape I had in my head when I wrote it. 

Uphill is where, according to local folklore, the boy Jesus landed with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, en route for Glastonbury. For me it has a deeply creative, rather more pagan resonance that feels just as divine.  

Oystercatchers

‘Aujourd’hui, maman est morte’

                           ‘L’étranger’, Albert Camus                                                                

One day

the day she’s been waiting for will come

and she’ll take these words with her to the sea

unzip her coat, pull open her ribcage

let them fly as purposely

as oystercatchers

pulling the strings of the sky

and tide

lifting the weight from each blood cell

giving her permission      

©Deborah Harvey 2019 

'Oystercatchers' is from my forthcoming collection, The Shadow Factory, which will be published by Indigo Dreams Publishing later this summer.