I remembered to take my Dad’s ‘bins’ with me this time as I was going to be crossing Minsmere again. Another beautiful day. How long will this go on? We’ll remember it as the lockdown heatwave. But what a blessing it’s been.
Remember how I decided to walk from home in the early days of the restrictions, from Otley up to Framsden and then down the Deben valley? I’m still doing that walk. Remember how much quieter the roads were then? Few people were travelling very far. I remember feeling guilty for going on my own to Thorpeness. Would I be stopped? What would I say?
We were only supposed to walk from home. Essential travel only. Only one bit of exercise allowed per day. ‘Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives.’ Now people’s movement feels like we’re almost back to normal although most people still aren’t back to work (me included) and most businesses are still closed.
It’s a long extended and enforced holiday. Am I the only one to feel that there’s been something subversively pleasurable about this whole time? Yes, I know the economy is going to pot and no, I don’t have my own business or children going bonkers at home so I know I should feel a bit more sympathy with the rest of us but hey.
Yet another day of blue sky and balmy breezes. There’s something rewarding in the retracing of steps. The continuity. Where was I the last time I was here? Sometimes it’s a bit of a plod to start with, not yet finding my rhythm. Here is the same sprinkler, laid out as before (so little water so far this Summer). Here are the same willows and small waterways that indicate the start of the reserve. It feels watery down here and reminds me of the Somerset Levels.
Along the rugged track directly East pointing to the sea. Here comes the old chapel up on my right and then the sluice on my left and at last the sea, the sea.
A line of weathered cubes lines the next part of the path, one out of step with the rest so that it’s corner faces down rather than its base. The path – a rough track – continues ever Northward, the North Sea once again an invisible but voluble presence just beyond the dunes.
Before long, a hide appears on the left that looks over the watery flats of the reserve. I notice some Canada geese with fluffy chicks and a lot of gulls and terns but to be honest I wouldn’t know something rare if it was perched 10 metres ahead of me.
I feel less sombre today. 10 days since Dad’s passing and we had so long to get used to the idea. It still makes me feel sad seeing his waxen face turned on its side, the life suddenly departed from it.
At the back of my mind throughout this time is the funeral hanging over us. The final act. I’m quietly relieved it’s not a big affair. Covid has forced us to have 6 of us at the graveside, 2 priests and the undertakers. Yet not having to face the friends and relatives is something of a relief. There’s less pressure although I know M feels sad about it. ‘We’ll do a service of thanksgiving but when?’ she says. We are all aware of how long it could take for it to happen and how many other people from their generation might have passed by then? Somehow a service outside in the sunshine seems so fitting for Dad, though, ever the nature lover.
The East Anglian coast is so stunningly bleak. I love it. Flat lines. Mute colours. Brown beaches and grey, brown sea. Ahead is Southwold and its lighthouse on a thin point sticking out into Sole Bay.
A National Trust sign indicates this is the start of Dunwich Heath which must stretch for some way North of here. The land rises inland, not by much (this is Suffolk after all) but the path curves up the small cliff (Minsmere Cliffs). Looking back I look at Sizewell and think back before that to Thorpeness, Aldeburgh, the Alde estuary, Burrow Hill and all the way back to Bawdsey when I started this odd odyssey, before Dad died, before Covid and lockdown, before so much change.
At the top of the cliff the path is recently paved and a long white row of cottages running West to East signal an old coast guard’s abode. They always make me tingle these places, old, out of the way and made to endure the hardest storms and help those who might be struggling at such a time.
I look back again. South. Back over time. We often forget to look back at the views we’ve left behind.
Up here on the Heath it’s suddenly strangely colourless. Almost sepia. Like a photo deliberately deprived of its colour dyes. It appears a wasteland. The land of the dead. Like that fantastic change of light in the film ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ when the bright orange of the desert transforms to a cold black and white.
A ghostly grey path threads its way sadly through the browns and whites of heather yet to spring into life. There are greens here too but much of this space on the top appears a dead zone.
It reminds me of the mental and emotional impact our environment can have on us. I suddenly feel transported to some far off desert, not the safe and fertile land that I normally associate with the county of my birth.
I have had similar experiences while out walking. A sudden and inexplicable coldness or fear from a moor or hillside or forest. I’m not a huge fan of forests. I lean more towards claustrophobia than agoraphobia.
Then, soon after the colours start to soften again and life becomes more apparent. More greens. Trees and bushes intermingle with the harshness of the dust and twigs. Woodland starts to take over on the Heath. Verdant lushness. A welcome relief. The sight of sunlight through leaves.
I know away through to the North through the trees lies the village of Dunwich now with a population of 183 but once a huge port town that was the same size as 14th Century London. What was once there lies out in the North Sea buried under silt.
Here I leave the path once again and head diagonally South West through a wondrously beautiful part of the Heath with a great variety of trees: birches, pines, beeches, the pines’ fragrance redolent of a thousand Mediterranean Summers.
As I return further South towards Minsmere the trees become thicker and greener and lusher and the light plays like sprites amongst the leaves. It’s a surprising and stunning way to end this part of the walk before I suddenly spill out of the wood back onto the marshes of Minsmere and past the legendary Eel’s Foot Inn, sadly closed for the moment but at least still selling take away beer.
The Slow Walker 