Everyday walks

On remembering the unremarkable.

Mera wants to walk at least three times a day. Most often, we turn left out of the front gate, and down the road towards the beach. She stops for a wee at the side of the pavement, or sometimes holds on until we reach the crazy golf. She disappears into the hollows of the sand dunes, and then, depending on the weather and her mood, she bounds or mooches towards the sea. On our morning walks, we greet the human members of dog club and Mera sits patiently amid the howls and barks, hoping for treats and fusses. Before we know it, we are home again.

I am blessed beyond measure to live by the coastline in Fleetwood. Yet our path is so familiar, I could walk it with my eyes closed. Some days, I do. Caught up in mulling over a meeting, planning for what comes next, wondering if I have enough dog food, I forget to notice the extraordinary things I pass.

Camellia flowers that fell from my neighbour’s hedge onto the pavement. The derailed train by the overgrown model railway tracks. The impromptu sculpture that appeared on the sand one day, and vanished just as soon. The wooden gate abandoned by the retreating tide.

There are more reliable wonders too. Old wooden groynes half buried by the beach’s insistent progress. Stiff marram grass blown by the breeze, sea kale that unfurls its deep green leaves, gorse flowers casting their pineapple scent into the air. The view through the doorway at the Marine Hall, out across the bay towards the Lakeland Fells. The new metal sculpture of a sea bird, still waiting for its interpretation board.

My phone may pinpoint these images in time and space, but in my mind, they are lost in the race of days. They are drifting fragments, washed up by the tide, familiar and fleeting, ordinary and remarkable. Together, they tell me, this is the place.