textures of Ravensheugh

St Baldred’s Cradle + Ravensheugh Sands, 13 September

It’s Friday afternoon as I write this and I’m sitting at my desk, trying to mentally rewind to this walk back in mid-September while thinking of the month ahead. As the ‘busy-ness’ of the season ahead starts to seep in, I am once again retreating, as every December, to the quiet headspace of these walks and these places and scenes. We don’t ‘do’ Christmas, in that we don’t get involved in the frantic gift-shopping or the social pressures that this season inevitably brings. A few years ago we decided just to take a side-step away from it all. How about a Christmas without cards or gifts, without the pressure of expectations, where it was just about the four of us enjoying a few quiet days together and having fantastic walks… how would that feel instead?

And… it felt great. It was a relief. I realise this approach wouldn’t work if you have kids, or indeed a big (human) family, but as our kids were canine, Harris and Bracken had no issue with this. They didn’t care about unwrapping things - although young Bracken used to love demolishing a cardboard box. They weren’t drawing up gift lists or looking at us with expectant eyes - unless there was food being prepared, of course. On Christmas Day, we always planned a great walk together. It was a day to drive down the coast, and take the lads for a long walk that we knew they’d love. It was a day to simply exhale and be thankful for this togetherness. Christmas Eve was the same, and Boxing Day. Days to be outdoors.

And I’m so glad that we were thankful for this togetherness. In doing this, it simply shifted me further and further away from the expectations that this time of year always seems to carry. So, come the 25th, you’ll find us here, the three of us, or at John Muir County Park, or maybe on that stretch of coast from Gullane to Eyebroughy. You’ll find us enjoying the quiet.

All of which is to say, this feels like a good point to sit down and share this walk around St Baldred’s Cradle, and on along Ravensheugh Sands. A favourite walk for us, as you’ll know if you’ve followed posts here (and certainly if you follow on Instagram), and one that changes with the shifting tides and skies and light and seasons. On this Friday back in September, it was a walk that offered the most beautiful, gentle tones, with layers of textures in the rocks and lichen and grasses, as well as beyond in the waves and the weighty clouds. It was a low-light walk, but with moments like this, above, where sunlight broke through the clouds. Now imagine standing here, gazing out across the water towards the distant Bass Rock, listening to the waves on the rocks below, and simply absorbing this scene.

As you can tell from these photos, I love this distant view towards Bass Rock. When walking here at a ‘middling’ tide, not low, but not high, this rockscape is submerged below the water, but at a very low tide, as on this Friday, the landscape shifts with the rugged textures and with those subtle pink tones of the rocks. The giant rock in the distance, grounding this vista and this coastal landscape, and these elongated formations in the foreground, like fingers extending into the sea.

And Rafferty, looking as if he was made for this scene, for this location, just as Harris and Bracken were before him. This rock sits on Ravensheugh Sands, and it contains the most subtle purple-y tones against the speckles of golden lichen - a detail that’s more apparent from a different angle than here. While Raf doesn’t yet have the ease with these portraits that the lads did, that’ll change with time. When we walked over here, Raf knew that he was about to be elevated into position. He’s getting that this is a ‘thing’ for us, and while it must seem a bit strange, he’s learning to roll with it.

We walked on along the shore, with only the sounds of the waves and our footsteps in the sand; Raf running and running, his joy so evident in these places. Looking at these photos, I think you’d guess a more wintry month, and it seems strange to consider this now and remember a balmy wind rather than the chill that has accompanied our recent coastal walks. But these scenes also make me look ahead. We have so little daylight now, and I’m finding these abbreviated days hard. As I write this, it’s almost 3pm on a grey-skied day and we have barely any light. That’s mentally and physically draining.

So I’m looking at these photos and it’s giving me a reason to look forward to the Christmas break - for more of this. For more hours spent outdoors. For more time soaking in daylight. For longer walks, watching Raf dashing ahead along the dunes. For car picnics with mugs of tea to gently thaw our frozen hands. For big skies and mid-afternoon sunsets. For a lot more photos, and for the delight of taking those photos in these places. For celebrating this special season in our own quiet way.

St Baldred’s Cradle and Ravensheugh Sands, East Lothian, 13 September 2024.

#ravensheugh #tyninghame #eastlothian #coast #scotland