I’m not sure this is art – perhaps it’s an arty photograph? – but that I was able to take this photograph was certainly a surprise.

East Suffolk has not suffered anything like northern England and Scotland from the December and New Year deluges but it has nevertheless been very wet with much rain and day after day of dull, grey cloud. It had rained heavily all day today* but suddenly at around 15.30 the rain stopped, the clouds cleared and as I plodged down the lane to Snape marshes this picture presented itself. Publishing it is personally therapeutic sensu ‘the sun at last’.

The view itself is familiar, looking south west across the marshes and the R. Alde towards Snape Maltings here, with its distinctive roof in profile, silhouetted against a blazing sun as it slid behind the buildings. Gone were the pale lemon yellows and light greys of recent winter sunsets – at best, for many have been wan or non-existent. Perhaps this composition of brighter yellows, orange and a hint of red is a foretaste of sunsets soon to come? We may be only a few days into New Year on one calendar, but we are well past Solstice on another.

 

*I discovered from the local paper the next day that in fact heavy rainfall had fallen over much of East Anglia and that many instances of local flooding, especially of roads, had occurred in East Suffolk.

While I’m indulging in arty photographs, what a contrast to yesterday evening when I took this photograph well into dusk about half an hour later (16.20) than the above sunset on the following day:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was taken about 300m further along the estuary to the east, looking south across the marshy Nature Reserve towards the river embankment.

After rain had come a gloriously sunny afternoon – briefly actually warm – but by 15.45 the air temperature was plunging. A mist was well-developed along the river bank and its formation was moving across the marsh towards me, but in this north eastern corner of the Nature Reserve, enclosed by trees on all bar the river side, something about the very localised conditions briefly created this extraordinary effect of ‘stratified mist’, forming almost on the wet ground and about 6m above it. The photograph was taken for the record but the image may well appear artily somewhere at some stage.

The effect had disappeared a few minutes later. So did the person who, immediately after I clicked for this picture, fired an air rifle nearby. The pellet pinged with a sharp splat into the water-filled ditch a few metres to my right. No otter or bird was hurt.