You will not find any Tourist Board photos here, just sea, birds and mud, which is how it was - North Norfolk on a damp, grey day, but rather lovely in its own down-beat way. It was also my first visit to the sea since before the first 2020 lockdown and all that came after. It made me happy.
This post is all about the ancient town of Walsingham that once housed an important medieval shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham and now has two shrines, an Anglican and a Roman Catholic one, based around the remains of the original shrine and its priory.
I visited Walsingham on a drear, grey day in the middle of June. A combination of the weather and the ongoing pandemic kept the crowds away and it felt like I had the small town largely to myself.
Laying Down Lines
I am making these lines through the golden green of evening
tracing its glory light with the worn dark soles of my shoes.
It’s a time I have repeatedly sped through in the past
making hard lines for always somewhere else
leaving my yearning like a lost trail behind me.
Now I am lingering, laying down lines
timelines, lay lines, ends of lines
along old green lines long since axed
well past their glory days.
Tracing these parallels because you.
For you, with you, though you
have long since sped on by.
Via these lines, between these lines
I am leaving marks, laying you down
marking time
taking you
to the end of the line.
J.S.Watts
From photographs taken on: 17th April 2021, 18th April 2021, 29th May 2021 and 31st May 2021 across South Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire
