The weather may have been very grey and trying to rain most of the time, but it was glorious to be out on the coast and not in lockdown. It is the first drive out of Ipswich I’ve made for over four months.
Of course, we know Coastal Suffolk well and the wind is rarely absent and even in July you sometimes needs a leather coat.
I have been coming to Shingle Street since I was six years old and each time I visit I am surprised at how little it changes. However, it is a long time since I can remember arriving at low-tide and seeing the treacherous shingle bar at the mouth of the River Alde.
Today, as we were walking down towards the shoreline I realised the extent the sea rises and the stormy waves travel during a winter high tide. When I was a teenager I used to imagine living in one of the cottages of this delightful seaside terrace, but now with more and more shocking news about the Climate Crisis I would be too nervous to live so close to the North Sea.
For the time being the sea kale and other wildflowers continue to bloom and seed and partially stabilise this low-lying, marshy coastline and we can enjoy a refreshing walk along the beach.
End of July, hottest day of the year so far (35 degrees C) and there’s still no sign of significant rain for the eastern side of England. We are used to low rainfall as the norm here in East Anglia, but this heatwave is taking its toll even in our region where we tend to plant for dry conditions. The main barley crop has been harvested two weeks earlier than usual and there is concern that wheat yields may be down as much as 50% from their normal average for some Suffolk farms.
Walking around Ipswich the grass is bone dry and the colour and crispness of ancient mummy bandages. Let’s pause and think for a moment who would spend hours irrigating with drinking water to keep grass green? Surely no-one as the grass will quickly recover when the rain returns and it is such a waste of clean water. Oh and, don’t be fooled by the ‘green’ photograph from Ipswich Cemetery (above), in fact that is fallen blossom from the Pride of India/Golden Rain Tree (Koelreuteria paniculata) dusting the path. The grass is the same as everywhere else, parched.
It is pretty much the same about 15 miles away on the Suffolk coast at Shingle Street. Here the grass is dried out too, but it is dotted with colour from the wild thistles and mullein (Verbascum) enjoying the hot, dry weather and free draining coastal soil.
Naturally, on the beach side of the cottages it is tough Mother Nature doing her thing as clumps of sea kale (Crambe maritima) survive on the windswept pebble shore.
Agnes Ashe 