Category Archives: Postcards 2023

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After the storm

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This morning, with the clouds sailing like great ships above us, we drove north from Cornwall. The county had just been battered by storm Ciarán, and it felt as if it was still trying to shake the wet and the wind from its coat.

The photograph above was taken just after the sun had risen. It was a bruised dawn but it turned into a beautiful day. In front of us lay the sea, green-blue and whipped with white horses, while behind us turbines and seagulls span across the sky. This was their kind of day. They danced with the elements, while we clung like limpets to the ground.

The further we drove the drier the land became. The rivers shrank, and the light gleamed, with rainbows arcing across the fields.

Now we are back, and I cannot hear the waves but I can still imagine them, and the families and dogs that will be blowing across the sand beside them.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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In praise of pubs

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Leaves falling, storm threatening, and a venture into a valley unexplored in search of a pub – we’d been given the name and not much else.

It was mid-week and quiet when we pushed open the door, but a few of the regulars were in and others coming and going. We found a corner, and ordered some lunch. There we sat, like strange stones in a new river watching its life flow past. It was still and peaceful – a proper quiet pint. A place to be.

On the way out we spoke to the man on the next door table savouring the last of his pint.

“Great place this.”

He nodded.

“Sad we’re losing so many of our pubs, our real pubs.”

He nodded.

“Places like this feel like they’ve got proper roots.”

He nodded, then added: “Won’t know what they’ve lost until it’s gone.”

We nodded.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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“For those in peril on the sea …”

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Storm coming in tonight. A taste of what we’re told we’ll see a lot more of.

Standing on the gnarled Cornish coast, looking out at rocks that have been eroded by storms for centuries beyond centuries, is so humbling. The drama is everywhere. Not parading itself, but just there – evidence of the power of nature and its consequences.

Now it seems that nature’s power is growing, or channelling in new ways, with the consequences becoming more widespread. It is bigger than us, and it’s changing its patterns. The knowledge is unnerving. Bad enough on land. How must it feel to be at sea? These words keep coming to mind “… for those in peril on the sea …”

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bid’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea.

The hymn was written by William Whiting (1825 -1878). It’s said that he’d experienced danger at sea first hand, so when a boy at the college in Winchester where he was master, grew anxious about crossing the ocean, Whiting wrote what would later become this hymn to help calm the boy – a prayer for him to hold on to.

I can’t imagine that Whiting had any idea how apt his words would sound two decades into this millennium.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023