a year older

Yellowcraig towards Eyebroughy, 14 February

I feel that I should start this post with the date: my birthday, which explains how I persuaded Richard to take a Friday afternoon off work and head down the coast for a long walk. I imagined that this particular walk might be quiet, and it was, mostly, but I hadn't factored in the half term school holidays so we arrived at Yellowcraig to find a busy car park with lots of people around on the first short stretch, heading down to the shore, and started this walk with Raf feeling triggered. We wondered, was this a good idea…?

This is a favourite route and one we haven’t walked for a while as there are sections where there are no options to escape from the path. When at Yellowcraig or John Muir Country Park or Barns Ness, there are various pathways and places to escape or hide when needed, but here, as you follow the sandy path that leads in front of the contemporary houses along King’s Cairn, and then past Harris’s Rock (as we call it) and on along the narrow, winding path towards Eyebroughy, there’s no place to escape when you pass people. At weekends, this could be a very reactivity-inducing walk for Raf, so it’s been a while, and we’ve missed this route with its views towards Fidra.

Once we got past the busy-ness of the first stretch, thankfully this walk was quiet and remarkably free of people, given the weather. True, Raf does look a bit on edge here, but shortly before this he’d spotted a couple walking on the golf course above us - with just their heads bobbing along above the marram grasses, but that was enough - and this had him back on alert and feeling uncertain. But he settled again in time.

We paused here, above Eyebroughy beach, as the tide was in and this is a great spot to just sit and listen to the waves. I’ve mentioned this stone cairn before, but in case you missed my post from last year, this memorial cairn was built in 2018 by East Coast Gardens and is dedicated to the 15th Duke of Hamilton. The propeller is from one of the Duke's biplanes and points towards a landmark in Fife that he used for navigation, while the spy hole frames the lighthouse on the island of Fidra. It’s a beautiful structure, and it feels so right in this setting, above this rocky and pebbly shoreline. The area directly around the cairn is roped off so that the marram grasses will grow and eventually settle this piece more deeply into the landscape.

The arrival of each new year on this earth needs to be marked with an Official Birthday Portrait, right? I haven’t always done this, preferring to be behind the lens, but in our last chapter with Harris, with only days left together, I understood the importance of recording all these moments. Of being captured in the frame, that memory held. I think lots of us forget to do this, or choose not to. I’ve never like being photographed, always feeling self-conscious and awkward. Now, I regret not having more photos with Harris and Bracken. I regret that I was on the outside of those moments. The photos I do have feel so precious, and I look at them and wonder why I worried, and why didn’t I appreciate the importance of this until it was so late?

I’ve learned from this. Which is my way of saying: you’ll be seeing more of me here and on Instagram.

After pausing at Eyebroughy, we headed on along the dunes. There’s a point further along this stretch of coastline between Yellowcraig and Gullane that we used to always stop at when walking here with the lads, usually when heading in the opposite direction, from Gullane. It’s a great view point to settle and watch the sun set across the Forth on a spring or summer’s evening.

That’s where we headed on this walk, winding along the dunes with these views over the water, listening to the waves below us and watching as the light shifted across the sky.

We stopped when we reached the view point, the turning point in our walk. Richard perched on the log you can see behind Raf in one of the photos above, taking in that vista over the Forth, while Raf sniffed around, looking for something to roll in (and almost succeeding!), as I took photos of the lichen-covered rocks. Each of us contented in our own way.

This was a great walk, and I’m so glad that we didn’t change our minds when we arrived to find so many people at Yellowcraig. Even though it was mid-February and still definitely winter, this walk reminded us of all the longer adventures that lie ahead as we ease into spring. And that was celebration enough for me, marking this new year in a way that we all enjoy: being outdoors, by the sea, in this clear and crisp air, listening to the waves, and striding out along these sandy paths, relishing the quietness of this place.

Yellowcraig to Eyebroughy and beyond, East Lothian, 14 February 2025..

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