the running wave

Today has been a day of sunshine and showers.  Rather more April than October.  I can do a lot of weather watching from my perch here in North Berwick, and this afternoon I have seen a multitude of greys in the sky, and another series of grey in the sea.  I used to hate grey.  It was the colour of my school uniform, but enough time has passed now that I can appreciate the complexity of the colour and its myriad of hues, and I love them all! The Bass Rock is the subject of endless paintings, photographs and different art forms.  The classic view is of the Rock, white with 150,000 gannets (and gannet poo), set against a dark grey sky, as it was a few minutes ago.    My zoom lens can just about show the haze of gannets, as they soar and wheel around the Rock.  

From our grandstand view, here on the first floor of the North Berwick flat, we can sit and watch little cameos of family life, playing out before us.  I've just been watching a determined little tractor driver, with a taste for adventure, making his way across the beach, via the incoming waves, rocks, and several deep rock pools.  Just as well his grandfather, with the patience of a saint, was on hand to provide rescue services.  His equally patient grandmother just paced up and down, on the sand, while the stubborn little devil pursued his interest in off road driving.   Maybe it was his birthday, and they were indulging him, before they decided it was time to haul him home!

Some of us start an early October Saturday morning, with a mug of tea, looking at the sunlight catching the top of the waves of the North Sea.  Others prefer to get more involved.  I think I'll stick to the front row of the dress circle, and let others do the bracing stuff!!

The Great British Bake Off has nothing to do with it.  This is the time of year when my mind always turns towards making the Christmas cake.  Despite being a very keen cook, I am not a good baker, but I do enjoy making the cake in October and tucking it away, waiting to smugly produce it at Christmas time!  I always use a really good recipe of Joseline Dimbleby's.  It doesn't need icing, which is just as well as no-one in my family like marzipan.   I love it, but happy to go without, because this is always a really good cake, choc full of dried fruits and nuts! 

It really is a treat to be living by the sea for a while.  Watching the comings and goings on the beach, not to mention the rise and fall of the tide.  Wave watching is compulsive, mesmeric and therapeutic.  I named my blog the running wave  because I loved the line in the Celtic blessing ' Deep peace of the running wave to you '.  We all need peace in our lives, and although the sea is strong and powerful, the constancy of the waves running in and across the sand is unchanging, reassuring, and brings a sense of peace to me as I walk along a beach. On a bright sunny day, I love the way the white surf of the breaking wave reflects on to the water ahead of it.   Looking out across the sea, you can watch the waves building as they approach the shore. In yesterday's early morning, there was a lady, with a cup of coffee and a dog, completely fixated on the sunrise and the light spreading across the stretch of wet sand, looking towards the ...

It is very stimulating, living somewhere new.  We have visited North Berwick masses of times, to shop, walk on the beach or go out for a meal.  We lived just a few miles away.  But now there is time to wander and explore, and I keep coming across unexpected treasures.  The latest is a small garden of exotic plants which, really and truly, I would expect to see on the west coast, not in the chilly east, with the North Sea just a few hundred yards away.   Banana palms, kangaroo paw, eucalyptus, a foxglove tree,  Paulownia tomentosa, native to central and western China and here towering over the border, gingers, a crimson glory vine, scrambling over the wall behind, a Georgia O'Keefe arum lily next to a tree fern, and all sorts of other exotic plants, are growing in a small border, just over the wall from a car park!  There is a small aviary situated alongside, with zebra finches and cockatiels chattering away. I could very easily be back in ...