Greetings from Southwold

I may have left this too long before starting but here it goes.

Southwold was great, I came back with over 1000 photos and while many of them have proved to be rubbish to mediocre (and quite a few can only really be called family snaps) there were some gems. Having gone through them for multiple reasons I made a selection of interesting/well crafted ones for flickr, drew off the family and silly snaps for putting on Facebook and have a few selected as potential paintings.

Southwold itself is charming and compact. It is small but I still didn't manage to explore every street and every path in the week I was there. Life is paced at a lower gear than city life and it's greatest flaw for me was the brewery in the middle of town which is only really a flaw if you don't like the smell of brewing, yeast, hops and barley. Not much of a flaw really and hardly one I'd get rid of for the benefit the brewery must bring to a town that I imagine would otherwise rely very heavily on tourism alone.
For about 4 days out of 7 I averaged walking over 6 miles a day and indeed by the latter half of the week I was aching all over. Perversely the only thing that could stop me hurting was having a little stroll.

Day one was mostly spent travelling but we were treated to a short but violent rainstorm that left behind a lovely sunset and an interesting half bow rainbow that seemed to hover just above the sea. The storm was so violent that some members of the house were expecting funnel clouds. This proved to be the standard for the week with many days starting off fine then degenerating into sunshine and showers by lunchtime and blowing itself out by the time the sun went down. This made for some lovely sunsets and some dramatic skies highly reminiscent of my paintings. It might be something about the countryside and open spaces, or the weather/climate of this part of the world, or the fact that it is so flat that lends itself to some gorgeous sunsets.

The following day it was sunny but becoming overcast and I walked north up to the pier, got some wonderful panoramic shots of the sea front and then went to see how far north I could walk before the tide came in. Of course I had forgotten how hard it is to walk on sand compared to other surfaces and got tired quickly. In the end I only went about 30 mins up the coast but this was enough to tell me that while interesting, it was too barren to make a good painting. Gave me a close up view of coastal erosion though. By the late afternoon it cleared up and I perched on the beach watching the world go by. The evening brought a walk along and up the pier and another wonderful sunset.

Further days had me walking south to Southwold Harbour, to Walberswick on multiple days and beyond into the marshes, up along the River Blyth and exploring the beaches, dunes and marsh between Southwold town and the river mouth. Highlights included Walberswick ferry, (which is a service that crosses the Blyth's mouth between the lower end of Southwold Harbour and Walberswick. The best thing about it is that it is in fact just a rowing boat run for generations by the same family.) an elusive (at least to me) Red Admiral butterfly, the many strange and fun objects on Southwold Pier including the Quantum Tunnelling Telescope, the pirate household (A house on the sea front of Southwold with it's own flagpole flying a Jolly Roger) and Walberswick itself which is a very pretty if sleepy, tiny seaside village.Probably the best, most unique and unexpected experience was on the Thursday night. Absolutely nothing to do with art nor strictly dependant on being in Southwold (and I didn't even bother to try to take any photos) but never the less I think it deserves being recorded.For many years I've been desperate to see the night sky. While at university I was living in a town far too near to Nottingham and Leicester to see anything but an orange glow at night. At home, street lights and general southern England light pollution makes it impossible to see anything beyond a handful of stars on the clearest nights. Even a recent trip to Bristol with the purpose of staying up one night and seeing the stars with a universe crazed friend gave me a better view than I have ever had before yet that too was just a handful of the brighest stars and that says something about how often I get to see the real night sky (never before in my life).
So on the 12^th it was proving to be a clear night when darkness fell and I went out with the vague hope that I would see a little more than I had ever seen before. I can't say I was expecting much, knowing that a truly clear sky is a rare commodity these days. I certainly wasn't expecting what I actually got though, STARS! Everywhere, too many for my brain to truly comprehend, it was staggering and so clear that I could even make out the Milky Way even if it was just a slight change in tone across the sky. In fact I think it was so clear that I was let down by my poor vision when dealing with light at night. There were just so many stars that I was unable to focus and take it all in. One star(/planet maybe?) was exceptionally bright, ESE and not far off the horizon. According to my sister with her binoculars it was a planet and it had moons she could see!
But you know what made it even better? Well the 12^th was apparently the best night to see this years Perseid meteor showers, Whoop! I saw about half a dozen to a dozen small shooting stars and one huge one that streaked across half the sky and literally left me breathless for a moment. I was out there for a good two hours and only came in when I grew too chilly and a bit too freaked out by the darkness and coming across unexpected people/creatures. Tell you what though, it's done nothing to sate my need to see stars, in fact I'd say it's heightened it.

So I should get back to talking about Southwold rather than hijacking this post with talk of stars.
All and all it was a very interesting place. A great variety of people, sights, habitats and weather that has given me a lot of cool photos, both from a documentary/nature perspective and from a more artistic one, either in the images themselves or in the potential paintings I can create from them. I see lots of images and paintings with beach huts, lighthouses and the ocean in my future. One part from the Victorian age, one part candy coloured playground and one part unspoilt nature with a spattering of modernity.

Photos from the Southwold set on Flickr.