The first thing I noticed was the clarity of the air, and then the sharp green colour of the land. There was no softness anywhere. The distant hills did not blend into the sky but stood out like rocks, so close that I could almost touch them, their proximity giving me that shock of surprise and wonder which a child feels looking for the first time through a telescope. Nearer to me, too, each object had the same hard quality, the very grass turning to single blades, springing from a younger, harsher soil than the soil I knew.
I had expected - if I expected anything - a transformation of another kind: a tranquil sense of well-being, the blurred intoxication of a dream, with everything about me misty, ill-defined; not this tremendous impact, a reality more vivid than anything hitherto experienced, sleeping or awake. Now every impression was heightened, every part of me singularly aware: eyesight, hearing, sense of smell, all had been in some way sharpened.
The opening lines from
The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier (World Books 1969), a novel set in Cornwall.
Other Posts you might like:
Fistral Beach, Cornwall. BLUE.
Sanna Bay, Ardnamurchan, Scotland - waters running clear ....
Paintings of Polzeath, Rock and Padstow on my website.
