The weather has been all or nothing. Blockbuster episodes. A serene Autumn that seemed to last for ever, rubbing balm into the wounds from a typical Shambles of a Summer.
Then a continual swathe of rain and violent winds, a prolonged emotional outburst, that nearly got to that magic number of forty days before shifting into a cold quiet frost.
I got out on my kayak last week, with salmon heads for pot-bait from Doug the Fish.
A heron sat hunched in venerable stoniness on a crag, seeming to ignore my passing until I looked away briefly, and he was gone.
I paddled to where most of the pots had been. It wasn’t looking good. Then I was distracted by a strange movement through the water. A small determined head, trailed behind by a raggediness, almost like feathers; like a dwarf cross between a seal and a cormorant.
It was so intent that I could follow it towards a jagged outcrop of rocks without being noticed. Then it was there, with low winter sun icing its whiskers and outline: a large, ravenous dog-otter chewing furiously on a fish. There was a low, boiling swell, that I let take me closer every minute, until I was one pulse of wave away, before I pulled seawards.
He saw me and was gone.
I turned back to the task of looking for prodigal pots. A sad realisation was dawning.
Most were gone.
There is a pair stuck in that patch of gloup that still clings onto a set from last year. Then close in towards Pwll Gwaelog, a rope that I recognised was slung over a patch of razor-sharp rocks. Even on a day when the sea is like glass, getting whatever is left on the end of it back will be a feat.
I picked my way back in a close as I dared. No sign, but then, near where the otter had been, I saw the bent remains of a pot crammed inside the back of a cave.
Oh well. At least I don’t have to worry about them anymore!
One of those testing years.
Losses on all fronts.
But then with amazing, unexpected encounters.
Gifts and opportunities.
On the brow of a hill looking out over a new emotional and creative landscape.