Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Twilight by the creek

The waterways round these ways can be unremarkable and yet evocative at the same time. I meandered in lazy circles trying to find somewhere to try out my new camera lens and ended up in Bennett's Creek Park, a small suburban park with a dock and piers that fall away into a river that I assume is called Bennett's Creek.



As soon as I left the car the heat rushed out to envelop me, and the perspiration started to prick my face. Summers can be brutal round these parts. Summer has been brutal for some time. I find it hard to imagine the great Bayous around New Orleans, the festering swamps that team with all that bites, scratches and scrapes and the sheer oppressive humidity. Is it to surprising the guys who hunt gators seem to have parted company with their brain cells as surely as they have lose their teeth? The heat leaves no room to think, no space to breathe.



Yet at Bennett's Creek they defied the bugs to form a long line of fisherfolk, the lines flaccid in the mud that teemed with tiny crabs, looking for all the world like lice that infest the tidal marshes.

I didn't walk far. The sunset was disappointing as if the sun had too been mugged by the heat but there was a luminous quality to the water and the marshes that offered hope that my pictures wouldn't be flat.



And I took a short path to the trees to the high earth lookout point above the water where the river fell away on three sides and a house twinkled across the shallows. We had been here before. The place had history. Kids were smaller and the days we had visited the play park seemed curiously distant. The swings were now silent in the heavy, mosquito laden air and the half light. The earth bank afforded a wide panorama of the river, but was too expansive for the camera lens. I spied the sandy bank I had climbed down two years ago to be greeted by a tall snake rising from the stubbly beach.

This was not a beautiful place but it has a curious sallow charm. It reminded me of the BBQ here long ago when the darkness crept it and only the car headlights saved us from food poisoning.



Flarford Mill is more beautiful but I have only been there once. I have a picture of a boat under the pollarded willows by the old houses.  There were no bugs and no need for a change of shirt, although the clouds moved fast across the meadows in anticipation of the arrival of rain.

Perhaps I was homesick but I couldn't be sure. That would involve thinking and I haven't got round to doing that for some time.




17 comments:

  1. What better way to relax than to not think? Beautiful pictures, David.

    xoRobyn

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    1. thanks so much Robyn - a bit hot to relax, tho.

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  2. Looks like a beautiful place. Your description really brings it to life.

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  3. I don't think your photos are flat at all, especially the third and fourth one. They are quite beautiful and I would love to take a wander around there. I don't really mind heat if I'm outdoors. It is just on buses, trains or in the office that heat will plague me.

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    1. for sure Emm - there are few places as bad as the Tube in the heat.

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  4. Lovely pictures. It looks quite peaceful there.

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  5. So pretty and tranquil!! Although you mentioned 'mosquitoes' way too many times! lol I can live without those suckers (get it?). I truly don't know how people can live in the south in the summer. It's too hot and humid in the Northeast, nevermind the deep south.

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    1. Ugh I know Mississippi must be the pits JoJo - rots your brain

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  6. I don't have to imagine the heat as it seems all of us along the Eastern US seaboard are presently sweating through it. Obviously, the pictures won't capture the temperature but to me they did capture the gloominess I feel when oppressed by the merciless inferno that is summer. But maybe I'm projecting...
    Some Dark Romantic

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    1. no project away Mina - it is oppressive because it traps you and makes you feel lethargic.

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  7. Who can think in this heat? It's been brutal round here, too. If I'm not at the beach, I'm inside. Early evening I'll take a seat on the deck w/a glass of iced wine.

    Your photos make Bennett's Creek look a bit nicer than curious sallow charm. ;)

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    1. thx Jayne - surprised it's so hot up north, tho

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  8. Love the pics. I enjoy being near water, although the bugs drive me nuts. I bought a baseball cap which has mosquito netting attached. Sure, people make fun of me...till the skeeters are singing 'round their ears. Then they wished they had one too. (At least I like to think so.)

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    1. hmmmm nice look Lisa - but hey, if it does the job....

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On Blog PTSD

Now then. What the heck. It seems I had forgotten about my blog completely rather than just neglecting it this time. To return after so long...