Risking It

Saturday 12th February

Day 297

It’s a beautiful morning. We plan to spend the day gardening and doing Saturday chores. But the warmth of the sun pouring into the bedroom makes me want to bunk off. I long for the sea.

‘Let’s go to the Old Mill Bakery for breakfast,’ I say.

I know my husband will agree and he does.

Our journey is forty five minutes and we park in sight of the waves and families with barefoot children playing in the sand. We get out of the car in silence. I leave my camera on the back seat. I don’t want to record this day after all. Our scratchy, biting argument hangs between us like skeins of wool, muffling the cries of the circling gulls.

Breakfast, reading the newspapers, stretches into brunch with a second cup of coffee and a huge piece of granary toast smeared with runny raspberry jam, which I regret. We walk out along the high slab of the Cobb. The sea is wild with frothing waves. Every now and again one curls in and smashes against the windward wall, throwing gallons of white spray over the top, leaving the stones slippery black. And a few brave walkers soaked and laughing.

‘Let’s go the very end,’ I say.

‘Are you sure you want to?’

‘Yes, why not?’

‘I didn’t think you’d risk it,’ he says.

I watch the wave coming and turn my back. But it catches me, icy water drops seep through my hair, into my skull, filling the hood of my jacket. My husband faces into the ocean, and the spray hits his chest, his face, smearing his glasses. We laugh and shake ourselves like wet dogs. And so finally I let the salt wind snatch away the festering bitterness in my mouth.

We stop at the bakery on the way back and buy creamy wobbly lemon tarts for tea.