The Quiet Paths

Sometimes you don’t need an adventure. You just need your best friend, a little sunshine and the sea.

We escaped to Torquay for a long weekend, just the two of us, swapping everyday life for a few gloriously lazy days on the English Riviera. After nearly thirty years of friendship, we’ve shared plenty of adventures together, so there was something rather lovely about having absolutely nothing planned beyond eating well, wandering in the sunshine and spending as much time beside the water as possible.

There was, however, a slight disaster.

Somewhere on the journey south I had the horrible realisation that my camera was still sitting safely at home. Of all the things to forget! For someone who rarely goes anywhere without it, arriving at the coast camera-less felt almost unnatural. Thankfully, my phone stepped nobly into the breach, although I did have to accept that the weekend’s photographic record might be rather more relaxed than usual.

Perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing.

We wandered along the coast in the sunshine, swam in the sea and found plenty of excuses to stop for something delicious to eat. There was Prosecco and snacks on the beach, because sometimes lunch really does taste better with your toes in the sand and the sound of waves in the background.

Even without the camera, there was a little birdwatching. One particularly hopeful gull took a keen interest in our beach picnic, clearly convinced that we had brought enough to share. We disagreed.

Mostly, though, we simply slowed down.

We talked. We laughed. We ate fabulous food. We sat beside the sea and watched the world go by. There was no itinerary to follow and nowhere we particularly needed to be.

There is something very special about a friendship that has lasted almost thirty years. So much life has happened in that time, yet somehow you can still sit together with a glass of something cold, laugh at the same ridiculous things and pick up a conversation as though no time has passed at all.

The camera may have stayed at home, but perhaps some weekends don’t need documenting quite so carefully.

Sunshine, sea, Prosecco and one of my oldest and dearest friends.

That was more than enough.