When I want to go back, I head for the sea. For all our modern advances, our relationship with sand and water is unchanged in my lifetime. These images could have been taken any time in the last sixty years. There is a quality of light in the sky as you approach the sea which is apparent long before you arrive at the coast. It is this I remember from long ago summer holidays, summers when the sands were too hot to walk on barefoot. I am still drawn by that light:
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
Alnmouth beach
Alnmouth beach
Alnmouth beach
Behind the dunes is the wonderful Alnmouth Village Golf Course, the oldest 9-hole course in England. On this day the fairways were brown and hard meaning the ball would run forever. By comparison, the greens were islands of lush green. I was frustrated not to be playing – in my head, sand sea and golf are inseparable.
Alnmouth Village golf course
northumbrian : light 
I agree with you….it is the place where everything started… like david whyte said:The road in the end taking the path the sun had taken,
into the western sea, and the moon rising behind you
as you stood where ground turned to ocean….
Fabulous quote – many thanks for sharing.
I just love the tint on these photos. So nostalgic, along with your words. Too bad you couldn’t golf during your visit. Maybe next time?
Thanks Julie – you are right, it is time I played the village course again 😉
You’ve certainly stolen my lines, Robin!!!
Gorgeous post. Love the pics, poem and sentiments.
Thanks Jean – I even stole my own words – some of them appear here as well:
https://northumbrianlight.wordpress.com/2014/08/16/beside-the-seaside-beside-the-sea/
I am getting lazy 😉
Nothing thrills me more than hearing the cry of a seagull. The beach is my souls home I wish I could get to it more often. Great images!!!!
Many thanks Cate – fundamentally we are creatures of the sea, longing to return.
I remember a long ago break at a pub in the village (The Ship? Can’t be sure 🙂 ) and photos of our tiny tot, in warm padded jacket, in the dunes. Maybe you were playing golf that day, Robin. 🙂 🙂 Happy memories.
Maybe I was, Jo 😉 A warm padded jacket sounds about right for Alnmouth – I tried the sea off Bamburgh once and only just lived to tell the tale 🙂 A lovely stretch of coast but not exactly Mediterranean