I went to Cley yesterday with my good friend Colin, we'd been promising ourselves a trip since before Christmas but there hadn't been a good day so just not got round to it before. Still, it was worth the wait because it was a beautiful day. The sun was mostly shining but sometimes covered by dark clouds which made for a dramatic and changeable sky. And the wind was a little blustery but not cold. There might have even been a spit of rain occasionally but nothing compromising. We walked from the car park towards the little house on marsh that looks over to Blakeney, beach combing and being. It's an odd thing about beach combing you never really know what is going to draw your attention, it could be stones or shells or driftwood or scrap rope or rusted metal or ... this time I noticed a couple of strange fish things, to be honest I'd have left them there normally because they were neither of them pretty but I didn't have my camera so I have brought them home though I find them a little horrifying. I'd like to draw them, both of them, one was a skate tail, maybe, it had fierce barbs that looked like teeth and the other was a dog fish skin, after I have drawn them they will go on my compost heap, at the moment they are preserved in a lidded bucket of dry silver sand.
On a rather more delightful note the sea campion and thrift were both in full bloom on the dry marshes and as we sat to eat our lunch Colin noticed a field of blue which on investigation later turned out to be linseed or flax, very beautiful close to and at a distance. Also there were little terns nesting and fishing on the shore line. Little terns are exquisite little birds, it is hard to believe that they are tough enough to take the life that they live, nature is amazing.