Notes of a Shorewalker

By Catherine Boylan

Unhappy teaching and spurred on by an obsessive attraction to a young student, Catherine took a job in a hotel on the North Norfolk coast. The beauty of what she found made her want to discover more about Seashore life. These are notes she made on her walks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Sep 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781787101142

Catherine Boylan

Catherine studied English in Southampton. She worked as a secretary for the foreign office in London and Tunis before returning to Southampton to teach. Along the way there were jobs in a ballroom, a night club, a disco, cafés, hotels, and other diverse locations. Catherine has travelled in the British Isles and the Middle East.

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Notes of a Shorewalker

Catherine Boylan

Austin Macauley Publishers

Notes of a Shorewalker

About the Author

Dedication

Copyright Information ©

Acknowledgements

The Reserve

About the Author

Catherine has spent time in the West of Ireland and the Scottish Islands. She has also lived and travelled in North Africa and the Middle East.

Dedication

I would like to dedicate these lines to the Sisters of the Poor Clare Monastery, Dublin, the power of whose prayers has brought light and healing into our lives.

Copyright Information ©

Catherine Boylan 2021

The right of Catherine Boylan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781787101111 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781787101142 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2021

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Brenda Barlow, who encouraged me and typed the manuscript.

16/2 From my window, the thick white lawn to the shore. A summer bench, and a tailored bush black in the snow.

Fog blotting out the ochre sand: the heavy sky. Faintly somewhere in the darkness behind the whiteness, a lighthouse flashes.

As I look out at that shore behind the chaste lawn, he comes into my thoughts. In the dusk and by the glare of snow, down there the flat mussel beds and the shallow waves retreating, like dogs called off.

The snowy dunes to the shore. A dress the colour of the sand at dusk. For him – a garment the colour of the winter sun before it disappears, a livid disc, behind rising mist. No sound but the quiet waves.

The single call of a bird.

Going to sleep in this old hotel I seem to hear cries as of a group of children running here and there on the lawn in fear or excitement. But from the window I can see nothing but the regular glimmer of the lighthouse timidly grasping at blackness, like a sessile beat.

I walked quickly in the cold, but stopped, my eye caught by a pair of doves preening outside their white­ painted dovecot. A white farmhouse stood nearby. I walked on, but turned for a last look before taking the road through the dunes to the shore. A wide white expanse, delicately ribbed with clots of black earth. No hedgerows or fences, only the direction of the black ribbing, like chocolate drops dusting a cake, indicates the division of plot from plot, so that the land lies criss-crossed like a chess board. Here and there, rows of delicate, Pissarro-like trees mark the boundaries.

Small and fine of limb, the black tracery of their branches is set off by the snow in linear beauty. Below me, slender reeds fringe the frozen lake.

At evening, the great strand, the firm sand rising a little onto the horizon. Here and there an encroaching wave has left a curve of dampness.

The low sea, merging into mist. Unbroken, except here and there, at the waves’ edge, low hummocks of rock, like green pillows. Noisy gulls paddle between.

Climbing the dunes, I am welcomed by the lights of the great house. Smoke curls from the chimney.

I cross the lawn, deep in snow. And, once inside, I stand at the long windows of the lounge to watch the rabbits which come out to