Late afternoon of a late August day waiting for the non-delivery of a new fridge, I took the carpenter to the seaside to see his marshes. The monument marking the place where King Edward I died in camp on the marshes is not that interesting architecturally, but it's historically important and it's down our road-end, on our marshes. This is where I came on referendum day, watching the sun set between England and Scotland.
We walked down our lanes of hawberries, blackberries, elderberries, past the strange long-eared sheep, the strange bulldog-faced barrel-shaped sheep, the strange big-balled sheep.
The monument is a 19th century copy of an original dating from 1685, marking the spot where King Edward died whilst attempting to cross the firth to hammer the Scots once again, despite a long illness. His body was returned to St Michael's church where it remained for a week before setting off to Westminster Abbey for burial. Unexpectedly, the gate in the monument was unlocked, and we inspected the Victorian graffiti before heading out across the marsh, through the wary cows to the sea.
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| Marsh, cows, monument | Marsh, cow, monument |
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| Referendum day |
Dedication |
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| 189- | 1885 |
The rough marsh is crossed by creeks and creek-ponds, some narrow and easily jumpable, others wider and acting as paths to the sea. The wider ones have cow crossings - for the buffalo of the Solway-Serengeti, too muddy for humans in sandals - and occasional bridges. A snipe takes off suddenly from one of the creeks, copying the wheatears that take off from grass hummocks as we get too close. The rough grass suddenly changes to smooth grass, but it doesn't look remotely smooth enough to make a football pitch, or a tennis court, from - we understand that Solway turf is used at Brunton Park, old Wembley and Wimbledon.
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| Creek pool | Creek pool |
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| Cow creek | Saltmarsh |
As we reach the beach, the creeks get wider, with proper saltmarsh vegetation, now looking more like north Norfolk. The beach-edge consists of mudcliffs 6-8 feet high, with big chunks fallen off, settled, grass growing on one side, seaweed on another.
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| Mudcliffs | Lump |
We cross the rippled muddy sand to the channel of the Eden, looking at the birds beyond - mainly gulls with curlew behind; eventually we see lapwing too. As soon as we reach the riveredge we realise it's moving outward quite quickly - the tide must be coming in.
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| Touching my toes | Surrounded within 1 minute |
This far up the estuary, the tide comes in in only two hours, and then takes more than 12 hours to go out again.
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| Before | 25 minutes later |
Heading back inland, the carpenter tries his hand at cow-whispering, and a herd of bullocks follow us back to the fieldgate.
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| Sulky cow | Determined cows |
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| Strange sheep | Family portrait |
Late afternoon of an early September day mother-in-law minding, I took the carpenter back to the sea to brighten his mood. Sunnier than our previous walk, this time we went from Boustead Hill, where the road is much nearer the shore, leaving the car parked on one of the scrapes beside the marsh road.
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| Fells from Firth | Birds and sands |
The tide was low but felt to be turning - from time to time the tide, river current and breeze combine to make striking wave patterns going upstream in the middle of the river channel. After a while two great crested grebe come down the river and ride the waves - we imagine them doing this every day just for a laugh.
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And the cows licked the car.
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