The Salt Path Quotes
"Life had picked up every piece of ammunition possible and hurled it at him full force, in what had been three years of endless battle."
"We’d rebuilt this ruined farm together, restoring every wall, every stone, growing vegetables and hens and two children."
"We held hands and walked into the light."
"That day in the court building was the end of a three-year battle, but things never end the way you expect them to."
"The judge shuffled his papers as if we weren’t there."
"I stood in the field behind the house, under the twisted ash tree, where the children built an igloo in the big snow of ’ninety-six."
"We closed the courtroom door behind us and walked down the corridor, stiff, silent."
"The swallows had arrived late, in ones and twos, finally finding their way home after an epic journey, to swoop through the beech trees and gorge on insects."
"The realization had dawned that we had nowhere to go."
"We were about to leave the dimly lit, centuries-old house that had held us cocooned for twenty years."
"Living in Wales within a drive of the sea, we’d had many of those. Long days of sand-covered kids, blow-up dinghies, tuna sandwiches, digging holes, rock pools."
"Strange how the beach seems to bring out the best and the worst in people."
"It’s a true representation of British justice. Anyone can have it, if they can afford to tip the scales."
"We live near here and our daughter wanted to build a bungalow for us in the garden, so that we could live in it now we’re old, and she could live in our house so she could care for us."
"And on the cliff, with a dying man falling into withdrawal from a central nervous system depressant."
"How many rabbits had landed in the sea, and how many more would be washed away? Or would the pounding sea beneath their warren eventually be a loud enough warning for them to move on?"
"Life is now, this minute, it’s all we have. It’s all we need."
"We were achy and slow, creaking from the wind and rain of the previous day."
"Sitting amongst an outcrop of rock at Carn-du, our first Channel sunset was different too."
"We sweated, drank all the water, gathered more from streams, sweated some more."
"Two sheets of nylon between us and Canada."
"Always hungry, we gave in and handed over a cherished note in exchange for mackerel baps and tea."
"Sparrows squabbled in the hedge in the first light of dawn, a soft yellow light giving the broken clouds a luminescent glow."
"The clouds had lifted far enough to make out the lump of Gurnard's Head and the headlands in between, but the sky still hung low and grey, threatening to stay if the wind didn’t resist."
"The wind turned the rucksacks into sails, but thankfully the path rolled rather than jerked and stayed away from the edge."
"The sea came, rushing in with urgency and force, rising above the tideline and not stopping."
"Our legs dragged from exhaustion along the tarmac road, our packs were now twice the weight and draining streams of water."
"Rain that beat our not-waterproofs so hard it was deafening, hurt our heads as it fell, soaked us to the skin."
"The morning brought cold mist, but the rain had gone, leaving the fog on the headland."
"‘That’s a good life.’ ‘It’s a great life. No ties, no problems.’"
"Our path was getting slower and slower."
"‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing? There’s two tables out there uncleared. What do I pay you for? You’re fucking lazy.’"
"‘Sorry, but we can’t afford them, we can’t take them.’ ‘Yes you can, I’m not charging you.’"
"The ease with which he’d walked out of his job carried the security of youth."
"I could feel the sky, the earth, the water and revel in being part of the elements without a chasm of pain opening at the thought of the loss of our place within it all."
"In the early light choughs swooped and hovered between the cliffs and the Bellows islet, their red beaks and legs clear against the dark rock."
"‘Bloody hell, Buster, SIT.’ The dog stepped backwards away from the edge looking as shaken as a spotty dog can."
"‘How come you’ve got enough time to do that then?’ ‘Because we have no job and we’re homeless.’"
"The worst of the rain blew by and we walked in heavy drizzle, pulses of horizontal rain passing in squalls on the south-westerly, sheets of grey falling from cloud to sea."
"‘We’re having a cup of tea. Want one? You’ll have to wait ’til we’ve finished with the cups though. This couple are walking the coastal path.’"
"‘They don’t talk to you about it, because it’s you that has the problem, not them. They talk to me. We’ve talked frankly about it all.'"
"‘Tramp.’ Moth turned back and waved. ‘Gull feeder.’"
"‘Bloody seagulls! That’s why I’m leaving Mevagissey. It’s the same as St Ives.’"
"We lay on the concrete by the benches on Gorran Haven quayside and soaked up the retained heat, watching the gulls massing overhead."
"‘Sometimes, Ray, I wake up and I can’t remember what I’m supposed to do.'"
"‘Did you see her, the peregrine? She’s been here for a few weeks, beautiful in’ she.'"
"‘Take your heart pill, Doug, and look the other way.’"
"‘Come with us, if you like. We live outside of town; you’ll be able to camp there.'"
"‘Come in, quickly. I don’t want to stand here with the door open.’"
"‘No, you give yourselves away. Lying there, propped on your rucksack with your arms still through the straps.'"
"The wind licked warm air in from the Channel. This time we had chosen to stand on the sand with the salt in our hair."
"Mackerel fishermen dotted the shore, the lights of their lanterns swinging through the night and the rattle of the ever-moving pebbles eerily punctuating the darkness."
"It had been a relief to share the path with them, a happy distraction from our own lives, and the sunlight was just a little dimmer without them."
"We left Dave and Julie in West Bay to catch the bus for their return home. As we hugged them goodbye, we knew that this time really was the last."
"The ends of almost all of the plastic tubes were beginning to split; we were merely days or a high wind away from the tent becoming useless."
"I rubbed boiled-cabbage back rub on Moth’s shoulders as the wind increased and we packed everything loose into the rucksacks in case the duct tape didn’t work."
"Living with a death sentence, having no idea when it will be enacted, is to straddle a void. Every word or gesture, every breath of wind or drop of rain matters to a painful degree."
"There had been a spot in the back field of our farm, near the hedge with a view to the mountains, where we said we’d be buried, in the days when we thought it would be our home forever."
"Leaving the sea, we entered the woods, our packs weighed down with fossilized ammonites from the beach, relics of other lives, other millennia, from a time when we were fish."
"The next morning should have stimulated an appetite, with a whole section of the coast being named after the contents of a butcher’s shop. Gammon Head, Ham Stone, Pig’s Nose, ferry. Salcombe."
"We sat in the reed beds between the main road and the Slapton Ley nature reserve: a long shingle bar separating a mile and a half of freshwater lake from the salt water of the Channel."
"We found a patch of grass by Smeaton’s Tower and unrolled the mattresses and sleeping bags at the most hidden edge, not daring to put the tent up as it would be far too obvious."
"It didn’t get dark, the street lights giving a permanent twilight. I felt exposed, vulnerable, as I never had on the path."
"The tent rattled and shook in the strong wind whipping around Penlee Point and into Plymouth Sound."
"There is a quote, thought to be by Icelandic author Thorbergur Thordarson, which goes: ‘When the surf was high, the sound of the sea was one continuous roar, heavy, deep, dark, sombre, with all kinds of variation, and at its height you felt it also came from the very earth beneath your feet.’"
"How can there be so few individuals who understand the need for people to have a space of their own? Does it take a time of crisis for us to see the plight of the homeless?"
"We would have passed through Polperro as the lights were coming on in the pub, but that night we ran in and bought two beers, one each. We had the deposit and first month’s rent. We had noodles in the pack and a student loan coming in a few weeks. And a roof. Could life be any better than that?"
"Our homeless trail was over. We sat on a bench overlooking Lantic Bay, our rucksacks propped together, and shared the last of a pack of wine gums."
"At last I understood what homelessness had done for me. It had taken every material thing that I had and left me stripped bare, a blank page at the end of a partly written book. It had also given me a choice, either to leave that page blank or to keep writing the story with hope. I chose hope."
"All I knew was that we were lightly salted blackberries hanging in the last of the summer sun, and this perfect moment was the only one we needed."