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.