(Solway estuary)

An early morning walk along the Solway shore; the early sun, already warm. Soft air dotted and streaked with the piping of wading birds – mainly oyster catchers, but also curlew and the beautiful, diminutive,  ringed plover. The sand, rippled by the recent tide, is studied with thousands of cockle shells. 

This estuarine coast, with what, writing about a different estuary, Dylan Thomas described as its ‘visiting sea’, is very different from the rocky coast of north Pembrokeshire that I am used to. The sand here is muddy, oozy and rich. Where I am standing it presents a star field of worm castes, and I feel an echo of the unease these coiled masses used to evoke in me when, as a squeamish, bare-footed child, I used to plot courses between them as if they were mines. 

The morning is calm, with a bucolic feel, but a number of deep sea-sculpted holes in nearby rocks, reminds me that this can be a wild and harsh environment.  I imagine, in the winter maybe, when the geese are here, a storm funnelling up the estuary causing a two metre swell on top of the usual ten metre tide. As  the push of salt water meets the downrush of the fresh, the denser salt water cuts under and superimposes a wall of turbulence on the already powerful tidal flow. Such currents redistribute vast quantities of sand and silt and shuffle and re-shuffle, the ever changing banks and channels. 

But not today. Today is gentle.  I walk a little further before the lure of coffee and a bacon sandwich overwhelm my curiosity.

Late evening somewhere between Kilmarnock and Dumfries 

I look out of the van window, the view is pleasant if not startling; the gently rolling countryside of the east side of Dumfries and Galloway, with the hint of higher hills in the distance. There are soft headed grasses close to, moving in the breeze and, best of all, a number of swallows swooping and diving over a small rise close to the van.

It is lovely but, to be honest, I can’t help wondering why I am here and not an hour or so’s drive further north, when I would be in the wild country, Glencoe maybe, or even further out on one of the islands. I hope it is simply a consequence of an increased inclination to appreciate more subtle elements of landscape – not needing to have one’s senses bludgeoned into wakefulness by towering peaks and cascading cataracts. What was it Nietzsche said;

The most noble kind of beauty is that which does not carry us away suddenly, whose attacks are not violent or intoxicating (this kind easily awakens disgust), but rather the kind of beauty which infiltrates slowly, which we carry along with us almost unnoticed, and meet up with again in dreams; finally.

Nice! And it feels sort of right, but a less hopeful thought nags; maybe this is just another sign of ageing. Don’t I remember my parents going through a similar transition. A gradual drawing in of the horns; holidays in Yorkshire rather than the Ardnamurchan peninsular or the Isle of Mull. But then – it occurs to me now, and for the first time – maybe they weren’t actually ‘drawing in their horns’, maybe they were just experiencing the same changing aesthetic as I fancy I am experiencing. It is so easy to ascribe the wrong explanation, or motive, to people or events – so long as the brain has  some sort of coherent model it tends to be satisfied and often doesn’t ask what other explanations or other models might fit the evidence.

But, despite these doubts it is truly lovely to be here. To have a little time to just Be. Weeks, months or even years of, what I am sure is nothing more than the ordinary stuff of life, or at least of life at the age I find myself, have made time to write, or even think, scarce. Even reading has, on the whole, been desultory and sporadic, with numbers of books started but not finished. When I have read, there has been a need for lighter material, novels and books about walking rather than philosophical tomes or works on the frontiers of science. A need for enjoyment and reassurance. 

Don’t investigations into the real nature of things too often end in unease, sadness or, in some instances, something close to real horror? The saying ‘The truth shall set you free’ is a motto of a number of universities, including the prestigious Californian Institute of Technology (Caltech), but might this not be hopelessly optimistic? The more I read and think, the more I have found myself wondering if it might not be at least equally likely that  ‘The truth’ will bind us.

With regard to writing, even if the time and inclination are present, isn’t it still hard to say anything? Don’t thoughts, and inclinations, have a way of cancelling themselves out? Like pairing socks after emptying the washing machine, one starts with a pile of chaotic possibility, but one by one each argument or impulse finds its counter argument or impulse, until there is nothing left. Add to this, the tendency to wonder if one should say what one is inclined to say and the chances of committing anything to paper becomes vanishingly small. Straight is the gate and narrow is the way! 

But, despite this, it still seems important to try, to somehow test oneself against ideas that have intrigued and tormented for many decades and, if not now, then when?

The Solway estuary

An early morning walk along the Solway shore; the early sun, already warm. Soft air dotted and streaked with the piping of wading birds – mainly oyster catchers, but also curlew and the beautiful, diminutive,  ringed plover. The sand, rippled by the recent tide, is studied with thousands of cockle shells. 

This estuarine coast, with what, writing about a different estuary, Dylan Thomas described as its ‘visiting sea’, is very different from the rocky coast of north Pembrokeshire that I am used to. The sand here is muddy, oozy and rich. Where I am standing it presents a star field of worm castes, and I feel an echo of the unease these coiled masses used to evoke in me when, as a squeamish, bare-footed child, I used to plot courses between them as if they were mines. 

The morning is calm, with a bucolic feel, but a number of deep sea-sculpted holes in nearby rocks, reminds me that this can be a wild and harsh environment.  I imagine, in the winter maybe, when the geese are here, a storm funnelling up the estuary causing a two metre swell on top of the usual ten metre tide. As  the push of salt water meets the downrush of the fresh, the denser salt water cuts under and superimposes a wall of turbulence on the already powerful tidal flow. Such currents redistribute vast quantities of sand and silt and shuffle and re-shuffle, the ever changing banks and channels. 

But not today. Today is gentle.  I walk a little further before the lure of coffee and a bacon sandwich overwhelm my curiosity.

The Solway estuary

I have been thinking about sand ripples. There were lots on the beach yesterday, as I walked back from the rocks to the shore. They have always intrigued me. Being by the sea lends them a considerable poetic charge, but they are an interesting muse on many levels. How do the soft, squishy, somewhat chaotic  elements of sand and water give rise to such geometric precision? Their complexity is expressive.

So, sitting here this morning, looking out over the estuary and enjoying the peace and the first coffee of the day, I have started to dig and one thing has led to another and my sand ripples are showing every sign of turning into something of a rabbit hole. Or maybe, though it is hard to be sure at the moment, a veritable warren, with exits in many disparate and interesting places.  

But, however much holidays are a good environment for starting ideas, they are not the best for pursuing them, so I make a note to pick up these sandy ponderings when back home in Wales.

Carn Enoch on the Preseli Hills

It is humid and misty, I can see neither the sea nor the hills – even the Carn Enoch rocks are hidden. The heather and gorse are in flower, but the colours are muted, the only birds have been a couple of black corvids; crows, or maybe ravens.

I have a short time to pursue my sand ripple investigations before heading to Fishguard for a practice session with a welsh tunes music group I am part of. The amount and variety of music in this area is one of my very favourite features of living here. Wales is known as ‘The Land of Song’ and the acceptance of, and fondness for music seems to be safe and well. Long may it continue.

As I mentioned, sand ripples have always intrigued me. I once had an idea for some pieces of art which would incorporate ripple patterns using embossed paper. The inspiration for this came from a print I own which shows a toad crawling up a sand dune, where the marks left by its passage are embossed into the thick art-paper.  

But despite these artistic inclinations my ponderings usually turn more towards science, or more specifically physics, than art. Of course, even within physics there are nuanced perspectives and motivations. Mine would best be described as lying towards the boundary of physics and philosophy, with maybe a bit of art or poetry thrown in! This, despite the fact that my career in physics has been on the intersection of physics with engineering rather than philosophy, but careers nearly always involve compromise, unless one is one of the lucky few that is.

Let me be the first to admit, this intersection of physics and philosophy can be a dangerous area. People who are drawn to it may be looking for something beyond what may seem to be the sterile reductionism of mainstream physics and I suspect it is easy to look too hard, to see things that aren’t there and to clutch at straws. May every Mulder contain their own Skully!

Of course, the hardest things to examine are ones own unspoken assumptions – for example I just described mainstream science as ‘sterile and deterministic’, I am not the first to suggest this, and it can seem to be just that, but we must proceed carefully. What assumptions underlie this impression? Are they justified? What are the alternatives?

But all in good time. One has to choose an entry point into a topic and I have chosen sand ripples.