Local

SUNDAY

1st July 2021

We drove down the coast on Sunday evening, hoping for a cooler walk after another warm day. Also, our evening walks are about quietness. We want to get to the beach when most other people have gone home, which is making these midsummer walks happen later and later in the day. But that’s okay. And Sunday night didn’t disappoint. We followed our usual route: through the woods, enjoying the dense, lush green; across the grassland that’s now scattered with wildflowers, with bursts of purple and pink; along the top of the dunes, winding along the sandy paths, which Bracken (strolling along the beach above) and Harris (below) always enjoy; and then down onto this wide expanse of sand.

The dunes were also scattered with wildflowers and dense grasses, which looked beautiful. I’ve accepted that if I’m going to spend this summer with a hayfever-filled head, at least try and have walks that are worth feeling a bit rubbish after. And this is definitely one of those walks.

And this walk was also about seaweed. Last weekend’s walk here was all about shells, and specifically limpet shells that I was picking up along the way, whereas the beach was scattered with seaweed on Sunday. There’s nothing unusual about that, obviously, but if you pause and look, there are so many different varieties, and I can’t help but be drawn to these textures, from the ‘frilly’ seaweed below to the one that looks like wild and tangled hair.

If you scroll to the bottom of this post, I’ve added a video that I hope captures the mood of this walk. It’s handheld, so a little shaky over this sandy ground, which is making me think that I should take my DJI Osmo gizmo on walks – which I used to do, but it was one more thing to carry. Do you enjoy videos in blog posts? This is still new for me, so drop me a comment below and let me know if it’s something that you feel adds to a post.

Yellowcraig, East Lothian.