Southwold was a favourite destination for Mrs S & I. We travelled the few miles over to the coast regularly throughout our years together, particularly out of season, for many a pub lunch and cobweb-clearing walk. I'd been studiously avoiding that part of the world even before the pandemic, for fear of reawakening ghosts - indeed until this week it'd been over two years since I'd set foot in the place. On Tuesday I found myself out in that area on other business and thought that perhaps it was time to tentatively revisit the old haunts. It was a clear, gloriously sunny late-afternoon, but I initially felt myself hurrying around the streets, as if anxious to get it done and hot-foot it back out of town, so I wandered down towards the beach, gulped down several lungfuls of fresh sea air and felt my anxiety drift away. A few short weeks ago I wouldn't have been able to move for holidaymakers, but now it was largely deserted. As the light faded, the air reverberated to the noisy chatter of hundreds of Barnacle Geese coming down onto the grazing marsh beyond the houses on Gun Hill. I pulled out my phone and caught a shot of the sun's final rays, stretching across the ancient cannons that point mutely out to sea. What a lovely evening. The ghosts? They were around alright, but they kept a respectful distance.
