Pliny and Nostradamus were eating their lunch at a wooden table under the ancient and ragged casuarinas at the grassy end of the carpark next to the Henley Sailing Club.
A soft cool breeze blew over their picnic from the sea. A yacht with white sails moved between the papery tree trunks on a sea of brilliant turquoise green and blue. A vapour trail dissolved in the sky.
They ate cold sausages left over from last night's barbecue, a farewell dinner for their daughter who was going back to London.
They ate potato salad, rocket and tiny red tomatoes from the garden. They dipped into a pot of mustard their daughter had given them for Christmas.
They ate nectarines and grapes, washed down with tapwater from a plastic bottle.
It was too beautiful to go straight home. They walked on the beach for a while, sometimes looking at the colours of the sea and the sand banks and the shallow pools, and sometimes looking up into the sky to see if they could spot the plane their daughter was flying out on.
Showing posts with label yacht. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yacht. Show all posts
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Monday, June 29, 2009
The Minda Dune
Yesterday we had a challenging walk. It was my mum. She said, let's go this way for a change, when we got to the esplanade, so the three of us headed off into the teeth of the wind.
It was alright for her, she had a scarf.
The entire bay was empty, except for one little yacht. The horizon was shipfree. The sea was a deceptive shade of brown. The sort of brown that nips up into spiky jabbing black and green jaws at the corner of your eye, which disappear at once when you confront them.
Eight seagulls flying north. A squishy frothy patch a few metres out from the rocks, near the Minda Dune.
See that dune, says my mum. It's supposed to be a fragile environment. It doesn't look too fragile to me. It's just a mess.
She decides to go back and find a seat to sit on. We two continue into the wind for the sake of good form.
We turn back after five minutes, re-passing the Minda Dune. We look at the sign, which says Fragile Environment. The dune is fifty metres long and is only there by accident. The accident of belonging to Minda Home. Everywhere else has been cleared and built on. It is probably too small to be sustainable
There is a photograph of the types of flowers to be found in the hollows of the dune. They are tiny delicate pink yellow and white. There are no actual flowers anywhere to be seen. Only stunted windswept bushes, gnarled roots and long strings of half dead grasses sticking out at unsustainable angles from the sand.
I stare at it until it becomes beautiful.
It was alright for her, she had a scarf.
The entire bay was empty, except for one little yacht. The horizon was shipfree. The sea was a deceptive shade of brown. The sort of brown that nips up into spiky jabbing black and green jaws at the corner of your eye, which disappear at once when you confront them.
Eight seagulls flying north. A squishy frothy patch a few metres out from the rocks, near the Minda Dune.
See that dune, says my mum. It's supposed to be a fragile environment. It doesn't look too fragile to me. It's just a mess.
She decides to go back and find a seat to sit on. We two continue into the wind for the sake of good form.
We turn back after five minutes, re-passing the Minda Dune. We look at the sign, which says Fragile Environment. The dune is fifty metres long and is only there by accident. The accident of belonging to Minda Home. Everywhere else has been cleared and built on. It is probably too small to be sustainable
There is a photograph of the types of flowers to be found in the hollows of the dune. They are tiny delicate pink yellow and white. There are no actual flowers anywhere to be seen. Only stunted windswept bushes, gnarled roots and long strings of half dead grasses sticking out at unsustainable angles from the sand.
I stare at it until it becomes beautiful.
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