Waves

A troubled week this, my mind as restless and relentless as the North Sea's waves, my body weakened by a cold that's seen three friends in bed. Yearning to get outdoors, today I covered my cold in a woolly hat and went to the restless waves in Holkham Bay. Red-breasted mergansers were here, two drakes and a duck, fidgeting from one patch of rough sea to another, and a red-throated diver, coming headlong to land in the breakers at my feet. In a patch of youthful saltmarsh - muddied sea purslane and the crisp rosettes of rock sea lavender - a big flock of linnets fed. I stalked them (still time for a twite, after all) but they were linnets. Linnets and here and there a skylark and a meadow pipit.

Outside the day was short and cold but at home was an email which melted a year of frost.

I know now that when the loving, honest moment comes it should be seized, and spoken, because it may never come again.

Gregory David Roberts

Shantaram