A rain of light – a fine white veil sweeping along the sea horizon like a swishing curtain against a backdrop of slate grey. There must be a gap in the sky to the south but it’s gone now and the illuminated downpour becomes absorbed into the wall of cloud behind it. The tide is far out and the beach is flat and gleaming and, as I walk along the lacy hem of the water, I remember another rain of light.
That one was land-based but equally short-lived. It didn’t pass past but showered over, tiny particles of water scattering around me like myriad stop-motion gems.
I was pottering about in the corner of an overgrown stone-wall enclosure beside a ruined cottage on a green hillside up behind Fairy Glen, behind Uig, on Skye. I was standing in the slim shelter of a silver birch and the light beneficently showered down in the late evening summer sunshine. It was a sudden refreshment, gone as quickly as it arrived. But it was utterly beautiful. For those few moments, light was domain and dominion, and relief.
Coney Beach, Porthcawl, South Wales
18th January 2014