Country diary: the elements collide in a rite of autumn

Budle Point, Northumberland: As people often do when watching sunsets, we slip into a reverent silence, as if observing a ceremonyAs a cold easterly whips the Northumberland coast, the blood-orange ball of the setting sun seems to be crashing slowly into Budle Bay, turning the river that meanders through the sand and mudflats into liquid fire. We are meant to be hurrying back to the car, but I come over a brow on Budle Point to find my partner sitting rapt on a bench, all sense of haste dissipated before the spectacle.I join her. As people often do when watching sunsets, we slip into a reverent silence, as if observing a ceremony. Though the outcome of the ritual is predictable, the progression towards it is never the same. As the land darkens, the brilliance of the setting sun is amplified in the sinuous tracery of water, the wind picks up, and the clouds are edged with flame: earth, air, fire and water all momentarily aligned. The collision of elements seems appropriate for the transitional nature of the season - a rite of autumn. Continue reading...