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.