I always find walking along the North Norfolk coastal path calming restorative. The endless skies of clouds whch make dreamy characters from children’s picture books and the gentle salty air filled with samphire and sea lavender. The colour palette and interesting wild textures inspire me to write and paint.
Here are two textured painted sketches of the atmosphere evocative of Stiffkey salt marshes. I hope you enjoy t
Salty fishing huts,
Decaying.
Fraying, swaying
Tangled rope.
Old fangled
Lanterns.
Jam & crabs,
Salmon & dabs;
Foggy tea,
Weed curdling
Sea.
Grand anchor,
Languishing abandoned,
Sinking in silt and shingle;
Seeping salty tales
Of billowing sails
On crescendo gales.
Breached and reached
Barnacle braille
Tales of whales
And ancient
Sailors’ ways.
“http//dailypost/weekly-photo-challenge/abandonment/2014/02/28”
The colour ‘orange’, the theme of Cee’s weekly photo challenge for this week. How does the colour orange make you feel? Orange makes me feel creative and gives me the energizing sunshine filling my heart. 
“http://ceesphotography.com/2014/02/25/photo-challenge-the-colour-orange/”
Over the festive period, in between periods of very heavy rain, we tried to find places to walk which weren’t flooded or too boggy to pass even in the wellies! One day I had a craving to go to the coast so we went to Southwold in Suffolk, a jolly traditional seaside town. We had great fun playing with the dogs on the beach followed by freshly brewed coffee at the harbour and a purchase of fish, fresh from the boats. Another day we walked along the canal-side at Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire where I came across a cat on a ‘hot tin roof’ of a narrow-boat, enjoying the warmth from the rare moment of sunshine. The third photo of the beautiful lone horse who enjoyed some attention, was taken near a walk along a disused railway at Ayot green, a tiny picturesque village in Hertfordshire. I hope you enjoy looking at my furry friends!
‘ Memories are the key not to the past
but the future.’
Corrie Ten Bown
Time to wander,
Pondering whilst
Sauntering on
Sunny,
Silky,
Wet sand
Like a caramel
Fudge land.
Salty lips,
Chalky skin,
A deep,
Warm mineral
Breath in:
Letting go.
Waves fade
Negative thoughts
Wash away.
Sea lavender breeze,
Flotsam of old trees.
Memories like
Sea glass pebbles
And sea shell patterns
In the sand.
Ese’s challenge ‘memories’ gave me the idea to return to the memory of the walk with my husband and dogs on the Norfolk sands one carefree day when we were on holiday and had time to saunter and breathe in the minerals and taste the seaside. It was a precious memory, where we got lost in our own thoughts, reminisced and had fun with our dogs. The light was wonderful, so relaxing.
Ese’s weekly shoot and quote challenge: Memories
Free time on a sunny day
Washing your cares away;
Sharing stories with strangers,
Watching children play;
Salt & vinegar
Seaside charm;
Vibrant bickering bunting,
Screeching seagulls hunting;
Ice-cream tingling lips;
Queues for seal trips;
Kids squeak and squeal
As crabs writhe
And crawl: proudly
Presented in seaside buckets.
Hooray for the largest!
So for this challenge I chose a different subject matter, close to my husband’s heart as he comes from a long line of fishing people, with a passion and a great respect for the sea. The shot was taken in a tiny fishing village, far West on the Dumfries and Galloway coast. I was taken by the realism and atmosphere of this fine statue.
The fisherman is looking out to sea, deep in thought; I feel the change of angle of the shot has increased the tension in the photgraph. What do you think?
A fisherman’s thoughts
On a bleak Scottish day,
A chill crosses the lone
Fisherman’s gaze;
Mesmerized by spitting
Light on the blinking
Waves,
He thinks back to
Days when nets
Swelled with writhing
Catch,
A salty supper
For bairns
Rumbling tums,
Nursed on mothers’
swollen Laps.
As daylight fades,
He fears fisher folk
Amongst the heaving
Ocean:
Flotsam beaten,
Driftwood tangled
With a sea filled welly
Spilling out against
Granite boulders.
The golden hour begins
As a medley of majestic
Melon,
Opulent orange,
Sultry sanguine
And raspberry
Ripple
Seep serenely:
The sky prepares
To sleep.
Fishermen’s huts
Heave into slumber,
Creaking gently.
A brisk breeze;
A salty scent of
Slithering skate
Funnels through
Wooden slats,
Waking the ghosts
Of cod and
Heaving haddock.
Pearcing purple dust,
Dwindles to dusk;
Nibbled nets
Nest with
Lumbered
Lobster pots,
Lovingly abandoned.
My response to the challenge is the evocation of the sun going down on the beach, where the fishing huts feel ‘ lovingly abandoned’ for the night after a hard day’s work; there is also a deeper sadness in the ‘creaking’ wood and the ‘nibbled nets’ of a disappearing industry as youngsters move away to work: ‘purple dust turns to dusk’ and skills and experience die out.
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/photo-challenge-the-golden-hour
Beached boats,
Huddled, hoping
To sail with
The incoming
Tide.
A dreamy flotilla
Follows creeks
Through
The salt marshes,
Meditatively
Meandering.
Bitterns hoot,
Black headed
Seagulls squark,
Salty,
Sea Lavender
Seduces
Sailors.
Southerly breezes
Fill mainsails
And jibs;
Shimmering
Seaspray spits
On faces
Dried by
Samphire,
Salty
Winds.
Naturally
Heeling,
Sailors intuitively
Right their boats
As rippling
Waters
Rhythmically
Slap
Against
Their bows.
Painterly colourful,
Pristine regatta
Proudly, powers
Out to sea
Where
Sea faring
Story
Filled clouds,
Meet
The Ocean.
Lavender Moon: Artist, Poet and Lover of Nature 
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