 |  |
| Sea mist covering the sea so completely that I felt transported above the clouds...akin to flying. | Hendrick Avercamp (1585–1634) A Scene on the Ice. circa 1625. 392 x 770 mm |
I am related to champion ice skaters in the Ouse Washes...and had heard tell of my uncle skating from Littleport to Cambridge on ice by moonlight. The winters, when I was growing up in the fens of East Anglia, were not hard and I never saw the Ouse freeze. Then one cold weekend about 25 years ago when visiting my parents, I went to Welney Wash and can still remember the atmosphere charged with levity: bursts of laughter echoing through the frost, bright bobble hats and scarfs, the sounds of blades on ice...and shop keepers from our village suddenly lithe and elegant and happy. Breughel or Avercamp in motion. I witnessed it again on the ship to Antarctica as we slid into sea scattered with bergs. (see below)
Just recently, on the coast road between Weymouth and West Bay the whole of the sea had disappeared. And I immediately recognised that same communal high spirits. The sun above the mist had made magic of the familiar. Rather than driving through, cars were stopping and passengers spilling out to wonder and of course to record.
The light reflecting off that sea mist was, for me, like light reflecting off snow in the south of England. It doesn't happen very often, and when it does, I am never alone in delighting in it.
Below are a couple of watercolours made in 2005 in The Weddell Sea in Antarctica...see Antarctica page
Just recently, on the coast road between Weymouth and West Bay the whole of the sea had disappeared. And I immediately recognised that same communal high spirits. The sun above the mist had made magic of the familiar. Rather than driving through, cars were stopping and passengers spilling out to wonder and of course to record.
The light reflecting off that sea mist was, for me, like light reflecting off snow in the south of England. It doesn't happen very often, and when it does, I am never alone in delighting in it.
Below are a couple of watercolours made in 2005 in The Weddell Sea in Antarctica...see Antarctica page
RSS Feed
