My partner, Jen, and I spent last weekend at Filey on the North Yorkshire coast. We had gone there to celebrate what was, in her own words, ‘a significant birthday’ for Jen. When you get to our age, they all start to feel significant.
There’s something gloriously melancholic about the seaside in winter. The sparse land- and sea-scape seem reflective somehow. The light is different: metallic. The summer attractions are in hibernation. The dog-walkers on the beach are wrapped up against the bracing northerlies. As we stood on the headland of Carr Ness, looking east, out across the North Sea, it felt almost as if we had reached the end of the Earth: Finisterre. In reality, the next landfall was in Northern Germany, 360 miles away.
Even though we had a wonderful time, the photos I took during our stay reflected the general mood of melancholy. I kind of like them:
