A solstice walk

The solstice

I always look forward to Christmas but when it actually happens I feel depressed. I know this seasonal lowness is shared by writer and creative writing teacher Roselle Angwin as she has mentioned it several times in her blog. That’s a brave thing to do as Christmas is of course ‘the season to be jolly’.

    Admitting to such feelings in general is a brave thing for women to do as they are not supposed to be miserable. ‘Cheer up. It’ll never happen,’ men used to shout at you if you passed with a long face. And one of the best things for me about Roselle’s workshops is that they are places where you can express all those deep dark feelings not usually allowed. Indeed at one weekend, I started crying on the Friday and hardly stopped until I left on Sunday afternoon.

    Having said all that, she posted a poem on Friday in which she writes of ‘a small light at the selvedge of the black woods’. What a lovely image and one which has inspired me to post some pictures of a walk by the sea that Frog, Dog and I took on that same day, 20 December.

    Whether it was the solstice I don’t know as the date seems to vary. According to Roselle’s poem, the sun stands still for three days, which would include the 20^th, but that standing still is I suppose from our human point of view. After all, the sun doesn’t really stop or turn even though there has to be a point on its curve at which light begins to return.

The walk

As we climbed the cliffs all was grey. On the whole I don't mind grey. Sometimes I even love it. There are so many different sorts of grey - purple, yellow, pink, green. Sun streamed through a gap in the cloud on the horizon. It was early afternoon but we could have been watching a sunset.

Shades of grey, climbing the cliff

When we got to the top of the cliffs, the sun came out. We hadn't seen the sun for days and getting to the coast had been hair-raising. We'd gone on long detours to avoid floods and at one point considered turning back, worried that if it rained any more we wouldn't be able to get home later in the day. Thankfully we'd pressed on. The light was amazing and I had a moment of joy.

On top of the cliffs with the sun behind us

A less blurred view and a happy dog

We walked back through the undercliff. It's a narrow path and usually we are forever stopping to let other people squeeze past us. Today we met hardly anyone. (Before Christmas is often a good time to walk as people are busy shopping.) The wind had dropped and all was peaceful. I was transfixed by the texture of the sea.

The infinite texture of the sea