As you round the corner at the lower end of the high street, hugging the fenced boundary of the school field on your left, the coast road opens up before you.
It's a mile of simple, unlit road that runs east/west with one lane in each direction, and it's as straight as an arrow.
This is the back straight of our weekly three-mile run. The pavement we're on is a two-metre wide belt of grey square slabs, set back from the curbside by a three-metre strip of grass that runs the whole mile. Except for the daisies and the occasional dandelion, there are remarkably few weeds.
Across the road, over to our right, the pavement sits flush against the curbside, and along its far side is a flat, grassy headland roughly fifty feet wide. Beyond that lies a network of paths that crisscross the steep dunes flanking the beach some fifty feet below. From our vantage point, we can see a thin strip of sea, way off in the distance, poking above the headland before it quickly meets the horizon to become empty sky. With the school now behind us, there's not a building in sight.
On the rare occasions when the cars are far enough away to be silent, you can hear the soft breaking of waves rolling across the beach and echoing off the sand dunes below you. The rest of the time, there's a constant low rumble of car tyres on tarmac punctuated by the squawking of seagulls and the occasional bark of a dog on the headlands. The timbre of this background noise oscillates with a rhythmical swooshing effect as our feet bounce off the pavement with each stride.
We run with our legs locked in a mutual cadence. It's fifteen degrees Celsius on a late spring afternoon, and the cool northerly breeze from the sea hits you with a briny scent as it fills your lungs. The sun is directly ahead, sitting above a low bank of cloud in an otherwise clear, washed-out sky. It won't set for a couple more hours, and the shadows on the ground are just starting to lengthen towards us.
The slatted wooden fence on our left remains unbroken as we pass the school field, a small wooded area, and a field of bright yellow waist-high rapeseed. Over on the grass headland, we can see dog walkers, a man and two boys kicking a ball around, a small, irregularly shaped car park that's always half full, and what appears to be a couple of families sitting among a circle of deckchairs—the adults wearing coats and drinking something hot from plastic camping cups while four children run around playing. They seem to be trying to have a beach-like experience without stepping foot on the sand.
The fence on our left now changes to chest-high pale grey moulded panels, concave at the top and fixed to concrete posts roughly twelve feet apart. They border a public park with small, well-manicured trees separating its bonded gravel paths. Opposite this, on the headland, surrounded by nothing, is a small brick kiosk that serves drinks and ice-creams. An elderly couple, both wearing hats, stand under its awning, placing an order.
After the park, the slatted fence reappears, keeping a meadow of wildflowers in check. We turn off left at the meadow's far corner, exiting the coast road just before a housing estate on the edge of the next town. From here, we follow a smooth, dark road for a hundred yards, and the background noise dies behind us as we enter the secluded, tree-lined gravel footpath that will take us back home.
—2023—