Richard, Elinor and I went to Dunwich Heath on Tuesday afternoon.  We had originally thought about going in the late morning and having some lunch in the National Trust café there.  However, it became too hot and the thought of wandering about on the beach with the sun beating down on us and no shelter and us beginning to look like characters in one of those survival films (you know what I mean – crawling on all fours, blistered parched lips, savouring the last drips from an empty water-bottle, vultures circling overhead etc. – replace vultures with seagulls) prompted us to leave at 3.00pm.

The carpark was pleasantly uncrowded; I took my NT membership card to the office to get our free parking ticket and while Richard went back to the car to fetch Elinor and reassure her that the café was still open, I had a chat with the volunteer on duty and found out he had recently moved to Saxmundham and had a friend who had recently moved to Rumburgh; I also got a recommendation for a restaurant in Southwold.  I think he was a little bored and needed to talk.

We went into the café and all had a scone with jam.  Richard and I had clotted cream with ours but Elinor didn’t.  Richard and I had a pot of tea between us but Elinor didn’t as she doesn’t drink tea or coffee.  She had wanted a fruit juice but they only had water or fizzy drinks.  She, like me, doesn’t like fizzy drinks and she had brought a bottle of water with her. I quickly walked past the shelves of second-hand books on our way out.  I must not be tempted into buying yet more books!

We made our way to the path down through the heathland to the sea.  Everything was looking a little dry but there was this wonderful smell of hot bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) which took me back to childhood camping holidays.  Admittedly, we didn’t often smell hot bracken then, it was usually wet bracken but that has a lovely smell too.  Quoting from Richard Mabey’s ‘Flora Britannica’ “…for those who have lived in brackeny places, its sharp almond scent and the first splashes of yellow on its fronds in autumn can evoke powerful feelings”.  All this in spite of it being toxic if eaten and its spores being carcinogenic!  Also, I’m not sure that I think of almonds when I smell bracken.

The concrete block at the rear is what is left of Sizewell A nuclear power station, which is slowly being dismantled. The white dome is Sizewell B nuclear power station which is still going strong after 30 years. The evidence of work going on nearest to us is the construction of Sizewell C.  This construction (as well as the construction of the solar farms) has upset a lot of people and the mess to the countryside and disruption to traffic on the A12 (the main A road through the area) is to be seen and experienced to be believed. However, as well as bringing sorely-needed employment to the area and a reliable source of electricity eventually (I won’t go into the pros and cons of nuclear power here), the long-awaited improvements to the A12 and the by-passing of villages who have suffered very heavy traffic through their centres for decades is almost complete. This was part of the deal with tthe nuclear power company. There has also been work on a railway branchline. There are other issues involved but I won’t go into these at present.

Every time we visit the seaside we look out for ‘a literal seal’.  To explain: we were at Southwold a couple of years ago on a blustery afternoon and we heard an excited small boy shouting to his parents that he had seen ‘a literal seal’.  And there the seal was; just a couple of metres off-shore, bobbing about on the heavy swell and holding an enormous fish between its flippers which it was eating with relish.

I hope you enjoyed this quick video of the sea.

We watched what we believe were terns flying over the sea, every now and then dipping into the water to catch something and flying on again.

We have a colony of Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) in Suffolk.They arrived in Lowestoft some time ago and began nesting on buildings in the harbour area.  They then moved into the town and to the Lowestoft peoples’ delight (hah!) they began nesting on roofs and window-sills.  Conservationists are trying to encourage the birds to move out of the town into permanent accomodation out at sea.  I’m not sure how well this is going.

If you had a kittiwake nesting on your bedroom window-sill this is what you would hear from 3.30-4.00am until sunset (after 9.00pm) every day, all day, until the chicks are fledged.  Not to mention the mess and the smell!

Other areas fenced off at the foot of the cliff were to help the sea kale and other shingle plants establish themselves on the beach without people walking over them.  I think it absolutely amazing that plants can happily grow and thrive in a heap of pebbles and some sand.  A gardener spends so long enriching soil to nurture his/her precious vegetables and flowers, and here is a relative of a cabbage growing in shingle.

When we got back up to the car I went off for a couple of minutes on my own to look at the heathland further away from the coast.

There were ladybirds everywhere on the heath and on the beach.  I was a little wary of them as they tend to bite in hot weather.

I will leave you with a last look at the heath.

The heather was looking good and was at its peak.  Bell heather comes into flower a little earlier than the other heaths and Common heather (Calluna vulgaris), also known as Ling.