Low tide at Studland, H P Lovecraft and razor shells

Early one evening in November, I drove to Studland with Anne - we gossiped as we passed farm cottages with small dark windows - their roofs, tiled with lichened stone, had sagged with age - I thought of the stories by H P Lovecraft - such ancient dwellings should surely house strange creatures, or be the inheritance of some doomed  antiquarian -

Each side of the road were fields bounded by hedges of blackthorn and sparking twists of barbed wire - long grass rippled in the wind - sheep grazed in the shadows of King's Wood - high above the trees, you could see the chalk ridge of Nine Barrows Down - there was a pale moon, just visible, in the sky -

When we arrived at Middle Beach, we could see that it was low tide - a wide expanse of sand gleamed in the twilight - a low sandbank ran parallel to the shore - a triangular spit of sand protruded from this runway of damp ribbed sand - a few sea gulls rested on the still sea -

We splashed through shallow water to the sandbank - long lazy waves rippled across the bay - cobwebs of foam melted into the sand - I gathered up some razor shells, running my finger tips over their fragile blades - I stared at the beautiful patterns made by the movement of seawater escaping from the lagoon -

Three riders came down the shining crescent of the beach, from Bramble Bay - they passed us, moving through the shallow waves at a rising trot, then cantering, in a welter of foam - I looked down at the hoof prints, stamped into the sand -

A small silver plane flew overhead - the surface of the lagoon reflected the dark foliage of trees above the sand dunes - it got darker and more wonderful every minute -