risk assessment

The Covid-19 pandemic necessitated the imposition of national 'lockdowns', twice I think, one of the restrictions imposed during both being limitations on travel. 

Back in March 2020, before it all really got going and just before the government finally grasped the nettle, we went out and stocked up with victuals, after which we rewarded ourselves for risking a crowded supermarket shop by taking the air at Northam Burrows. We suspected that this might be the last time we would be doing this, having already cancelled our sailing to France and our long anticipated spring visit to Sablet . . . 

It was a lovely day. Northam Burrows proved to be almost the last visit we would be able to make to a North Devon coastline for the rest of the year. I took a solo visit to Blagdon in June as 'lockdown–1' was eased, where, as I was returning to the scramble back up to the head of the cove I missed my footing and fell against sloping smooth rock strata. I am pretty sure I cracked a rib: I was very sore for weeks afterwards… but as you know, I'm not one to complain…

My next communion with the littoral wasn't until September when we just managed to fit in a few days with Anne and the son-and-heir in our regular late summer jolly, down at Helford Passage. It was constrained by the ongoing limitations of Covid— but the sea was the sea: we were immensely glad of the change of scene and seeing familiar faces.

Mary and I did get to Sablet in late September and we did get some joy over there, a lot in fact. You'll be be familiar with my accounts of that visit on the Driving on the Right blog.  Of course you are. And that we had to make a run for home early as a French lockdown was announced and our trusty ferry operators began pruning their late autumn sailing options. We made the penultimate overnight crossing out of Roscoff, but not before we'd enjoyed a bit more communion with the sea at Les Sables-d'Olonne, La Rochelle and the Île de Ré. Again,  I refer you to my Driving on the Right accounts for more detail on the excursion to Sablet —you'll be gripped. 

This post is supposed to be about the shoreline here, and where I think I may be with the littoral thing, after being somewhat starved of it by events . . . and now infirmities… 

The truth is, I have lost my former moderate degree of nimbleness over the last few years. My balance is shot. I am suffering another rash of rather unsettling mishaps and misjudgements. Nothing as bad as the fracture I sustained on the eve of the new millennium, thus far, but reluctantly I have concluded my boulder-hopping days are behind me. I am losing confidence as well as the stamina to negotiate rocky foreshores. Traverses I used to relish, from one cove to another (like the one running south, from Blegberry to Hartland Quay, see below) along shorelines, between tides, well I think I have done my last. Can't take the risk. It was alright when it was just superficial grazing, the odd bruise etc,  but now I can't be quite sure of being able to pick myself up and get off the beach… fearful of what bit of me may be damaged the next time I totter…

All is not lost however. There are still places I can make use of, places that still offer the mini-landscapes and singular rockforms that intrigue me. True, such locations are often favoured by rather too many people and dogs but I anticipate that foul weather or the cold will reduce that popularity to more modest levels, which is when I like to be there anyway. 

And I shall still try to get to particularly favoured remote coves and shores when I feel it safe to do so, or (and here's an appeal!) accompanied by someone who wants to go see, and can tolerate a couple of hours or more of pottering about in a relatively moderate but far from modest space… Who is up for it?

………  best not hold my breath!

I've logged here some of my top 'local' littorals, in no particular order: my favourite is or was usually the last one I visited. I admit I am a bit fickle with these places: if one or other revealed a particularly intriguing line of enquiry, a special array of forms and beauty, well then, it got more visits, often consecutively. And places where I've come unstuck (cracked a rib, broken a toe, taken a dive) may get a cold shoulder from me for a while. But probably not. St Catherine's, as I like to call it, has twisted my knee, ricked my back, broken a toe and skinned my shins. As previously mentioned though, I am not one to complain…… But I just have to go there when I can, hoping for solitude and safe passage.

I was somewhat surprised when looking for an image to represent Sandymouth and Warren Gutter, adjacent stretches of the North Cornwall Coast, that I've not graced these locations with a visit since February 2018. The former is rather too popular at times for my tastes, the latter rather less accessible (but generally left to its own devices), and now perhaps a case in point if approached from Duckpool, north of the gutter: very rough going indeed, perhaps too rough now for my diminishing sense of balance. 

And that's the problem: my sense of balance. Let alone my lack of stamina. So, enough already, today is the anniversary of a memorable traverse along the littoral, first walking the Warren Cliff (another Warren, not the Gutter Warren) northward to Dyer Lookout, above Blackpool Mill, then returning south to Hartland Quay along the tortuous cliff stumps as the tide receded. A strong favourite this, full of wonderful and awesome grandeur. Traverses! Where few folk have ever trodden…