Oct 1 26
DITTISHAM
Blog by Lynne Pearl
It was on of those pearly days, when the light is soft and gentle and the sun is like a lamp, but a gentle one. It was not too bright and no glare and so when we came upon the river which was nearly an estuary at that point, it was a gentle river. And it was low tide so there wasn’t much of a river left anyway. The trees sort of hung over the edge of where water should have been as if to say, if we could we would go out as well. We would walk as trees do in story books, like Lewis and Tolkien. It does seem as if trees out to be able to walk. In a way maybe they do, through their means of communication via the tiny roots and the systems of spores and mushrooms so that messages are constantly being transferred from tree to tree and area to area. There is so much we do not know about our world. Yet we feel at a superficial level that we are all knowing, but it is more like there is much that we do not know, especially about nature and ourselves.
But miracles come daily.
I approach this beach which is a sort of a shore at the bottom of a steep slope that leads down and down as if falling upon itself until it finally reaches the water’s edge. The houses are thrown against the side of the cliff and the road down is like a ski slope with the houses clinging to their perches for hundreds of years. Still they are there. They have manic lawns and roses that catch the sun.
There are wooded banks at the bottom, nd there are deep curves. This is not straight river like the Thames which goes its majestic way, this is a secretive way, curving in upon itself. It is impossible to see around the corner of the river whether looking right or left. There is just a bend and steep woody banks rising from where the river ought to be. There are boats bobbing, waiting for the right moment of the tide. (Would that we had tides in our life, so that we would leave on time, the out gong tide). But right now the tide is completely out and little boats sink listlessly into the sand or lean precipitously to one side, waiting for water to come back.
The sea is just around the corner, you can almost see it. You can see the light that it casts just nearby, but not yet visible.
There are fluffy white clouds and Dartmouth and its ferry and the castle must be just around the corner. And there is the rest of the world, but not yet, not now and not for hundreds of years. This is the kind of place where time shifts or doesn’t stay the same. Just around the corner if the new world and change for humanity. Maybe.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7796332.Lynne_Pearl
Haytor by Cathy Whitehead