We've made a couple of trips out to East Lothian recently, firstly with my dad to one of our favourite beaches out that way. Because it's on a nature reserve, and it's a fair walk from the nearest car park, which itself is very small, there are usually very few people around there, if any. Which, at the risk of sounding misanthropic, is just how I like it. It brings me great joy to reach the top of that dune and look out over an expanse of sand, sea and sky.
The next weekend, we went to a new-to-us place a bit further along the coast from there. There are some interesting geological features around here, though I don't know much about geology. A short walk took us to a lighthouse I've spotted distantly many times from the LNER train between Edinburgh and England. This lighthouse was built by two of the Stevenson family of engineers around the turn of the 20th century. Those yellow-bordered windows and white walls will feel familiar to anyone who has admired other lighthouses around Scotland. These colours were selected by the Northern Lighthouse Board to aid daytime visibility of the buildings. I think they are beautiful buildings, often found in equally beautiful landscapes, as this one is.
Just down the coast from here is the imposing Torness nuclear power station, which adds something to the atmosphere of the place, though I'm not quite sure how to describe it. It's quite a good place for bird watching, too, and we spotted several different kinds on our walk.
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