We are in the shadow of Sellafield nuclear power station, which lies a little over a mile south on the hazy edges of the Solway Firth; concrete chimneys and painted pipes rise over the headland there, and below them the reactor in its silvery globe reflecting the mid-afternoon sun like a lost UFO. A few miles out to sea the distant peaks of the Isle of Man appear from the sea-mist, a floating mirage; north of us the lowlands of Scotland are just visible, vague and enticing.
Below on the sands the weekenders are out in force playing in the shallows, exploring the rock pools, skidding about on jet-skis.
Pol asks how happy I think I am on a scale of 1-10. I reply that on average I would say I was about 7 but that I can get to 11 if that's allowed in the rules; and that I have been as low as minus 3 before, which shocks her. I tell her that I am pleased I went there and that I came through it. In this way I feel like I have lived a complete spectrum of human experience and rather that than not. Even though it was tough at the time. I'm lucky I've come through it. Not sure how exactly but it is the case. She tells me of an experiment she heard about whereby they asked a selection of adults the same question and then asked each to place their hands in a glass of ice-filled water. Those that believed they were 7 and above could hold their hands in the water indefinitely, whilst those below had to remove their hands within a minute or two. It seemed that happiness had the added bonus of making one more impervious to pain. I thought that maybe we should try it. She said we should have a go in the shallows of the sea as it was bound to be ice-cold despite today's sunshine.
We walk up over the headland on to St. Bee's Head; the air scented with the coconut-like smell of gorse growing thick and richly at the cliff edges and lining the path. A pair of Stonechat tinker with their perches, bounding from one to the other then making out onto the wire fences penning the inland meadows, catching at flies and bugs so they flick in mid-flight, changing direction with instant rapidity before returning to another perch. The female rests herself on a tuft of grass and bounces her lengthy tail impatiently, constantly on the lookout for food and for her mate who is never too far away, keeping himself close, upright and alert wherever he lands. His black and white head and shoulders crisp against the landscape, easy to spot as he shows it off. It is a treat to be in the presence of these two. There is something gaily playful about them flitting from station to station; for me they epitomise the full energy of spring. The possibilities of plenty. The joy of the burgeoning lengthy days ahead of us. The prospect of learning about a new landscape, how it lives, grows, comes then departs; allowing it to become part of our joint history, to shape us how it will, in response, in time, in experience.
Energy. It's a good word to contemplate here, looking back at the power station. A hard debate. We discuss how atoms are split and why? And which atoms for that matter, she asks? Atoms that make up everything, you, me, us, them, that. We wonder at the alternatives; Pol has a vision of the coastline laced with wind-turbines, maybe even actually in the sea itself, rising out of the water.
At the top of the Head, the Coastal Path is visible following the rise and fall of the cliffs and, from here at least, ending at a squat white lighthouse beneath which an RNLI dinghy makes its way into the Firth. There's a journey there and we make a note that one day we will walk its length as far as we can see, which would take us over the border and tantalisingly close to Hadrian's Wall, which in itself would be another walk.
Gulls and cormorants share the air space about the red cliffs; the cormorants low to the water surface, slaking in gently to the rocks and broad platforms at the cliff-base, whilst the mixed genus gulls (Herring, Black-Backed, Common etc.) wheel out from their craggy nests, effortlessly soaring in the up-draughts seemingly just for the hell of it. From our situation above them, sat on the cliff edge, looking down to the breakers beneath, we get that magic view which Pol has christened 'on the backs of birds' whereby we are higher than they are in flight. And something always happens to me then - a sharing of perspective with the bird, almost a birds-eye view; the feeling that I might be able to reach out and touch them or, even better, jump aboard as they pass and be taken for a ride out over the sea with that soft eider warmth there between my legs; effortless, gentle, broad. It is a dreamlike quality made real. I don't think I will ever tire of witnessing it and of allowing myself the notion 'what if?' That vain hope of knowing what it is like to fly under one's own effort. Leonardo da Vinci's great challenge and learned impossibility.
Behind us three Whitethroats twitter and leap; a Tree Pipit tumbles from her post and disappears into the ground scrub.
I scan the cliffs in the hope that I might catch sight of the one bird I had wanted to see today, a peregrine. They are known to nest here alongside the usual coastal birds. Every dark shape I see sidling upward or careening windward I am following with my binoculars, but each time I am conned by a crow or jackdaw making haste or play or otherwise. No falcons forthcoming today. Still I can't be disappointed, the Stonechats and Whitethroats make up my birders incessant desire to 'add to the list'.
Later, at home, I get to thinking about the nature of happiness and realise that my scale is becoming so finely attuned to what I experience on these little expeditions, whether alone or with Pol - in fact it is held in that phrase 'nature of happiness.' Increasingly, I am watching myself put back together by the landscape, the retreat from the hunting for the next job, the small orbit of fame. I get to wondering about the ice-filled glass, and the atoms there in that must add to the tickle in the soul, the lucky soul, of someone who can say they are at 7 or above.
Like the Stonechats and those Whitethroats playing for spring.
St. Bee's Head, Cumbria
Below on the sands the weekenders are out in force playing in the shallows, exploring the rock pools, skidding about on jet-skis.
Pol asks how happy I think I am on a scale of 1-10. I reply that on average I would say I was about 7 but that I can get to 11 if that's allowed in the rules; and that I have been as low as minus 3 before, which shocks her. I tell her that I am pleased I went there and that I came through it. In this way I feel like I have lived a complete spectrum of human experience and rather that than not. Even though it was tough at the time. I'm lucky I've come through it. Not sure how exactly but it is the case. She tells me of an experiment she heard about whereby they asked a selection of adults the same question and then asked each to place their hands in a glass of ice-filled water. Those that believed they were 7 and above could hold their hands in the water indefinitely, whilst those below had to remove their hands within a minute or two. It seemed that happiness had the added bonus of making one more impervious to pain. I thought that maybe we should try it. She said we should have a go in the shallows of the sea as it was bound to be ice-cold despite today's sunshine.
We walk up over the headland on to St. Bee's Head; the air scented with the coconut-like smell of gorse growing thick and richly at the cliff edges and lining the path. A pair of Stonechat tinker with their perches, bounding from one to the other then making out onto the wire fences penning the inland meadows, catching at flies and bugs so they flick in mid-flight, changing direction with instant rapidity before returning to another perch. The female rests herself on a tuft of grass and bounces her lengthy tail impatiently, constantly on the lookout for food and for her mate who is never too far away, keeping himself close, upright and alert wherever he lands. His black and white head and shoulders crisp against the landscape, easy to spot as he shows it off. It is a treat to be in the presence of these two. There is something gaily playful about them flitting from station to station; for me they epitomise the full energy of spring. The possibilities of plenty. The joy of the burgeoning lengthy days ahead of us. The prospect of learning about a new landscape, how it lives, grows, comes then departs; allowing it to become part of our joint history, to shape us how it will, in response, in time, in experience.
Energy. It's a good word to contemplate here, looking back at the power station. A hard debate. We discuss how atoms are split and why? And which atoms for that matter, she asks? Atoms that make up everything, you, me, us, them, that. We wonder at the alternatives; Pol has a vision of the coastline laced with wind-turbines, maybe even actually in the sea itself, rising out of the water.
At the top of the Head, the Coastal Path is visible following the rise and fall of the cliffs and, from here at least, ending at a squat white lighthouse beneath which an RNLI dinghy makes its way into the Firth. There's a journey there and we make a note that one day we will walk its length as far as we can see, which would take us over the border and tantalisingly close to Hadrian's Wall, which in itself would be another walk.
Gulls and cormorants share the air space about the red cliffs; the cormorants low to the water surface, slaking in gently to the rocks and broad platforms at the cliff-base, whilst the mixed genus gulls (Herring, Black-Backed, Common etc.) wheel out from their craggy nests, effortlessly soaring in the up-draughts seemingly just for the hell of it. From our situation above them, sat on the cliff edge, looking down to the breakers beneath, we get that magic view which Pol has christened 'on the backs of birds' whereby we are higher than they are in flight. And something always happens to me then - a sharing of perspective with the bird, almost a birds-eye view; the feeling that I might be able to reach out and touch them or, even better, jump aboard as they pass and be taken for a ride out over the sea with that soft eider warmth there between my legs; effortless, gentle, broad. It is a dreamlike quality made real. I don't think I will ever tire of witnessing it and of allowing myself the notion 'what if?' That vain hope of knowing what it is like to fly under one's own effort. Leonardo da Vinci's great challenge and learned impossibility.
Behind us three Whitethroats twitter and leap; a Tree Pipit tumbles from her post and disappears into the ground scrub.
I scan the cliffs in the hope that I might catch sight of the one bird I had wanted to see today, a peregrine. They are known to nest here alongside the usual coastal birds. Every dark shape I see sidling upward or careening windward I am following with my binoculars, but each time I am conned by a crow or jackdaw making haste or play or otherwise. No falcons forthcoming today. Still I can't be disappointed, the Stonechats and Whitethroats make up my birders incessant desire to 'add to the list'.
Later, at home, I get to thinking about the nature of happiness and realise that my scale is becoming so finely attuned to what I experience on these little expeditions, whether alone or with Pol - in fact it is held in that phrase 'nature of happiness.' Increasingly, I am watching myself put back together by the landscape, the retreat from the hunting for the next job, the small orbit of fame. I get to wondering about the ice-filled glass, and the atoms there in that must add to the tickle in the soul, the lucky soul, of someone who can say they are at 7 or above.
Like the Stonechats and those Whitethroats playing for spring.
St. Bee's Head, Cumbria
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