At times the path descends so that we are part of the clifftops, down in the dampening green of ivy and harts-tongue fern and dog’s mercury. Stunted sessile oaks writhe for light as they stretch seawards and sunwards.
From this the path at times rises upwards and out into the open, as if drawing breath. Fields and the dregs of summer in washed-out cornflowers. Swallows: skimming the ground and then out beyond the clifftops, heedless of what we regard as empty space.
High over a rocky beach, a kestrel. Not hovering but gliding with perceived grace from perch to perch, blending seamlessly with the lighter seams of sandy-red rock. I dream of kestrels dropping faster than the eye can keep up.
After twenty miles or so we round a headland and the landscape changes. Steep climbs, blue-grey sea to our right and hedgerows to our left. No shelter here, where the shaping of places is so evident. The rain shows its hand early, out to sea and then rushing inland. The wind punches and the cold bites. We see the weather from miles off. In the cliff faces are patterns and folds beyond intricacy where, once, continents shifted.
No trees around the path now. Just bracken and brambles. Sloes left like abandoned jewellery on the bones of the blackthorn. The path is loose underfoot for some miles and then suddenly orders itself into switchbacks on the ascents. It takes the sting out of the climbs though still there is the solemn plod uphill. The weight of the backpacks shorten breath, make us stoop until finally the climb ends, we can breathe and stand upright and look down and up to the next climb. Miles of this.
At last, blue sky, green fields and easy going, down to the seaside town where we take the bus back. Four days of walking compressed to two hours and there is an absurdity to this ending. To shift my thoughts from this I go back to the swallows and a great sense of things moving. Swallows going and us walking, tide receding and returning on pebbled beaches, rain blowing in and summer drifting out. All these movements, in the rise of a swallow’s wing.
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