Sunshine and moonshine

Another gloriously sunny day. Walked along the beach from West to East Mersea in the afternoon, to Fen Farm, where the children are enjoying a few days of Enid Blytonesque adventure. It's only a three-mile trek, but it always seems to take the best part of an hour, crunching through shingle and splashing through the oyster-shell strewn mud.

The crowds were out with their buckets and spade and kites, but only in clusters around the beach huts, and further east the camp and caravan sites. In between were long stretches of emptiness.

Tramped back again between sundown and moonrise - this time sticking largely to the sea-wall. In the caravan sites, thousands of TVs flickered behind net curtains, backs all turned to the perfect southern sky, where a pale yellow moon was rising through pinkish clouds. Near the campsites, however, the smell of barbecues was enticing and kites were still being flown in the twilight breeze.

By the time I reached the Victoria Esplanade at West Mersea, it was dark.


'Look how the pale Queen of the silent night

doth cause the ocean to attend upon her,

and he, as long as she is in sight,

with his full tide is ready here to honour;

But when the silver waggon of the Moon

is mounted up so high he cannot follow,

the sea calls home his crystal waves to morn,

and with low ebb doth manifest his sorrow. '

(from 'Sonnet of the Moon' by Charles Best, 1608)