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BREATHING THE SCENTED AIR (#SingingAsTheDarknessLifts 123)

BREATHING THE SCENTED AIR  


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This morning a chorus from herring gulls welcomed in the morning, and the wind is swirling and mixing the scents of flowers and green.

 

Alt text says this week’s photo is a person holding a drink and a plate of food. I say it is me enjoying a sit down in a café at Chester Zoo with a drink and a doughnut after visiting a range of animals including a gorgeous tapir that seemed pleased that I told it that I thought it was gorgeous.

 

The first of March brought sunshine and gifted the perfect day to walk round The Great Orme in Llandudno. There were plenty of fresh smells to delight the senses for my sister and I. After the foodie smells from the doughnuts and onions on the pier, we had the herby scent of grass and gorse mingling with the fresh sea air as we headed round the coastal edge. There was a moment of pure contrast when a strong smell of fish puffed up from the cove below us where we had stopped to watch the seals swimming in the water. We moved along a little when this one hit our noses! This was the first time we have walked whilst the tide has been in and covered the area of beach that we usually watch the seals on. It was lovely to see them swimming in pairs and curving their bodies in the water as well as the familiar sight of curious heads bobbed up through the waves.

 

My sister, Katie, said that when she comes to Wales she enjoys the fact that she experiences an extended range of smells. She reports that for her the scents in Kent often fall into the following four distinct categories:

1.    Normal

2.    Cold

3.    Fresh

4.    Fumy

 

She also reports that the water in St Winefride’s Well is cold, and well worth taking a paddle in. This was one of the highlights of her trip up this time and as well as drinking some well water she has a small bottle to take home with her. We are saving the full immersion experience for when the weather is a little warmer. It’s always good to have another trip to look forward to and although we know the water is unlikely to be much higher in temperature we will at least be coming out into warmer air.

 

Here's to all the scents that are noticed and enjoyed this week, and here’s a seal poem I once wrote after watching for seals at The Little Orme...

 

SEAL AT ANGEL BAY

 

She sits on the cliff watching the water.

He is a rounded head buoyant in the centre.

 

Something on the air tumbled by the wind

interrupts him;

eyes and nostrils flick open

revealing stone-black depths.

 

Lines of sunlight silver the waves

diminishing her thoughts

of the iodine seaweed smell,

that mingling of fish and brine

that says he hunts the raw.

 

He is surveying the surface nonchalantly.

Soon he will be gone again;

under the waves

for long stitched-together minutes.

 

Tight solid fat turns to glistening grey.

She too stirs, as he curves into the thick water.

 

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