Flamborough

I drove here on impulse.

It certainly hadn't been the intention when I set off  this blistering morning. The plan was lunch in Leeds with an old colleague followed by shopping.

The lunch had been wonderful - we'd talked and talked, wondered where the years had gone, hiding from the heat of the day in the coolest part of the restaurant, before emerging, blinking, into unbearable brightness.

The city was feverish and the heat sapped all desire to shop - so instead I went back to the multi-storey and sat for a moment with the engine turning, waiting for the air conditioning to kick in, listening to the busy, busy city; the thrum of shoppers, buskers, sirens, road drills.

And sitting there, suddenly, I knew where I wanted to be...and it was all-consuming, urgent, as if I was already late.

Leeds was congested and impatient and getting out of the city took a frustrating amount of time. But eventually the hire car was chewing up the miles. Through glorious countryside, past fields of yellow, heady, scented rape; swinging round York, around Driffield, through Stamford Bridge, past the Burton Agnes duckpond, crawling behind tractors on the A614, bypassing Bridlington..

Until at last, here I am, finally. In the car park. Beneath the wheeling, spinning mirrors of Flamborough Head lighthouse.

It's 4pm - and the first thing I hear as I turn off the engine is the crunch of car wheels on gravel. Timing is perfect, most are leaving and the car park is almost empty.

The urge that brought me here has become overwhelming and for some reason - there is no logic to this - I need to hurry. I throw open the door and there is the sudden quick blast of a foghorn. Another blast follows - not the evocative tremor of a deep bass, but a higher frequency, and it's confusing to hear it on such a bright day.

Looking seaward though all becomes clear. There is no sea. There is no sky. They have blended in the haze, melded so absolutely that it is impossible to see where one ends and the other begins. There is no horizon.

The gorse and air fizz with birdsong. The skylarks' high-pitched musical trill is constant. It hurts the eyes to look for them but I see one - a dot in the sky, hovering before it loops and swoops, silent now, to the ground.

It is a gentle but exhilarating walk to the cliffs and gradually the song of the larks and the chatter of the pippits quickly fades, replaced the raucous calls of thousands of seabirds.

I sit close to your ledge and the foghorn sounds again, just as it did on the day we let your ashes fly from this very spot. And the air carries and lifts the sound so that it resonates and vibrates long after it has ended. But it is fainter out here, muffled by the waves and the cries of the gulls.

To the left a huge, riotous, breeding colony of kittiwakes hugs a white cliff face and to the right is the famous Flamborough Head stack, domain of the herring gulls. One throws back its head, opens its beak wide and gives that ululating seaside town fish and chip holler.

There's quite a breeze here and below the sea is lively with white horses.
The waves swell, crest and roll, foam dissipating on the surface. The water is blue, azure, almost Mediterranean and the pale rocks in the shallower parts are easy to see. The suck and roar, the pull and push, is mesmerising. It always is.

The air is filled with birds, and on the sea colonies rise and fall, bobbing on the swell. Razorbills - scores of them, their wings churring like the legs of a clockwork toy - guillemots, blacked back gulls, shags, fulmars.

The kittiwakes are unmistakable - yellow bills, black tips to their grey wings and white bodies as pristine and as clear as porcelain. They are tiny compared to the herring gulls and black backs.
They make their 'kitt-eee-wayke' call as a greeting, as one returns to the nest where the other is brooding. Their nests are strong, sturdy cones and arriving birds bring more materials - twigs, tufts of grass - as opposed to fish. No chicks yet then.

Occasionally the wind changes and a gust rears up the cliffs from the sea and the smell, the guano odour of this huge colony catches on the air. It's kind of stable meets zoo, only less....palatable?.

A gleaming roly-poly seal bobs on the surface, glances around with big shiny eyes and then loops and dives.
Further out, gannets, three of them, are streaking towards Bempton Cliffs. They are huge flying darts. And behind them a group of shags, inches from the surface. Their reflections are visible on the water despite the haze.

Suddenly, as if as one, the entire colony of kittiwakes leaves the ledges and take to the air. There are hundreds circling and calling. Something startled them but there's no sign of the culprit, possibly a bird of prey or one of the bigger gulls who are crafty, vicious egg stealers.

I love this. I love the wildness, I love that you are never ever alone, that it's teeming here with nature going about its business of birth, life and death.

Your ledge looks different though. It slopes a little more than it did before. The forces of wind and rain at work, and I know some day it will be gone.

For an hour or so I just sit, watch, listen and absorb until the brisk northerly breeze starts to bite. It's hard to walk away, but not unbearably so, because you are there but you are not there. You are everywhere and I take you with me.

I head to a bench perched on a grassy mound a few hundred yards away, where grandma and grandad used to sit with you. The wood is warm. The wind drops and I hear what sounds like a church bell. It comes from a buoy out at sea and it tolls with a regular rhythm, rocked to-and-fro by the swell.

I've only ever heard it once before - that foggy, grey morning when we came here, numb with cold, numb with grief and we cast you to the winds. And I hadn't expected it today..and it is loud and and resonant and somehow, significant, as I sit in your place amid the pipits, swallows and skylarks.

The bench was placed here as a memorial, as a remembrance, by another family. But it has become special to us too..and I know the words by heart:

 "He lived for those he loved. And those he loved remember.

Flamborough in the haze, on May 24, 2012