sunny morning
The second Saturday morning in November, at the height of the morning tide, it is 6.45 and the sky is pinky grey, almost fully light with just a little of the dawn twilight left. The wind just a bit colder outside than I had guessed, I fastened up my jacket and hugged my arms together, the gusts blowing all through my hair as I walked along Pearson’s Quay. I saw Ken and he said, very gently and quietly, ‘this is what living here’s all about’. Of course he is right.
The sun gradually brightened the sky and I wondered if I would have the best of the day over the next hour or two. When the sun is moving up in the sky at this time of day, it is sometimes brightly burning gold, and that is the only genuine feeling of pure sunlight that we have until sunset, on grey and cloudy days. As I write now, with half of the day gone, the sky is a gentle dove grey, with slight and occasional fine rain, just enough to touch your face in a pleasant kind of way, that reminds us perhaps that all our weather can feel like a blessing, if we let it.
Instead of walking round the old dock to the Roman River, I used the footpaths that ran behind and approached Fingringhoe from across the fields, coming back beside the river just before the mill. I walked straight up the private road alongside the mill and another house to join the road, turning left along it, towards the river Colne. I usually turn left at Ferry Road, but today carried straight on towards the sandworks and ballast quay.
All the time I had been walking, I stayed aware of the early movements of our birds, particularly the rooks. There are a number of rookeries parallel to the road past the mill, and although I was walking outward with my back to these, I knew they were there because of the swooping and calling above my head. This was a walk for reflection, so the birds, though welcome as always, found their place today around the margins of my thoughts and vision. Rooks assume beautiful, casual shapes against the sky and they often have a lop-sided, careless, almost louche quality that I do not see in the silhouette of other birds. I love the sociability and noise of these birds as much as their haphazardly scruffy appearance.
I got as far as the end of the road, but couldn’t see how I could get into the sandworks without trespass. I walked a little way down after the road became ‘Private’ as I could see a Public Footpath sign to the left. This was a grassy path with twin concrete tracks and fields on the right, running down to the bank of the Colne. The path runs alongside the river, separated from it at first by some distance, gradually drawing closer to the marsh and mud as it meets the end of Ferry Road.. I could see the far side of the Wivenhoe riverbank and watched the perspective change as I walked back upriver. Always using the church tower as a focus, I felt my course change, in step with the slow curling of the river as this disclosed more of the buildings on the far bank.
At the jetty end of Ferry Road the river is at one of its narrowest points between our two settlements (Wivenhoe is a town and where I live is a village). I stopped for a moment to look across and then turned away from the river and walked towards home. This time I was facing the rookeries, seasonably visible now, but not all leaves yet shed. The reflection had moved along a little, so my awareness of the birds was more acute. As I reached the church three or four rooks were bouncing around at the top of the tower. Every so often one would swoop across the road, heading for a high spot just behind me, then returning to the tower roof. The tower, striped with flint bands and still raw from recent renovation, was sunlit and I had stopped to enjoy the transient feeling of light and warmth in approaching winter. The rooks added a sense of cheerful and resilient liveliness; like the quick flush of sunshine, a reminder that all our seasons have their own particular beauty.