Up and away early through Brighton’s traffic to Beachy Head, arrived to an empty car park
The azure sky was daubed, scratched, scored and flecked with white; the sun sparkled off the sea. To the west the coast swept round to Worthing; in the east lay Eastbourne and, faintly, Hastings. Small fishing boats bobbed in a jeweled sea and dropped crab pots.
We cooked bacon, sausage and eggs, and ate them sitting on a thick grassy carpet rich with herbs and flowers, yellow, white, blue, purple and reed. A magpie sat atop a hawthorn, its coverts gleaming a steely blue in the sun.
On the way down the bank towards the cliff edge we watched a stoat stalk and kill a small rabbit – two magpies, drawn by the high pitched cries, flew down to look on with a mix of curiosity and agitation. We found the rabbit, soft, warm, bright eyed, and dead with only a small would at the base of the skull and between the ears. We left it to nature; on the way back it had gone leaving only a small trail of broken grass.
A hundred yards distant the car park had filled up and visitors hiked along the cliff top paths creeping towards the edge for photos, always looking for a better vantage point, which perhaps was never found. Gulls sailed by, jackdaws strutted about jauntily and stock doves rooed from on cliff ledges. A jet roared past and a red helicopter clattered by under the cliffs.
Far below the sea glistened in the sun; distance reduced waves to mere mute stripes across the water. A pleasure boat rounded the lighthouse and the disembodied, fragmented commentary drifted up to us ‘…built in 1902…cliffs 530 feet high, the highest chalk cliffs in Britain…’. Distantly through the haze a ferry headed out of Newhaven bound for Dieppe. Grey cloud shadows sailed slowly across the sea and the Downs. Inland a black plume of smoke rose from burning stubble behind a hill. A harvester cut a golden field of wheat sending out a low droning roar.
A couple lay in each others arms precariously near the edge – she French, he German, their accents gave them away – they spoke English as a common language. They were happily oblivious of what was going on – of the mothers clucking like worried hens as children followed their example and ventured too near the edge.