Wild cabbage of the misty cliffs

Wild cabbage or wild sea kale, Brassica Oleracea

Having abandoned plans for a walk on Saturday, we set off for Samphire Hoe on Sunday morning, on the way to pick up a click and collect order to replenish my stock of compost. At home it was bright and sunny, but as we reached the coast France was obscured by mist. By the time we descended to the nature reserve below the iconic Shakespeare Cliff,  almost everything was blanketed in sea fret. We decided to walk nonetheless; it wasn't cold, there was no wind, and it was strangely eerie. We could barely see anything out to sea. There was no horizon, no definition. It felt as though we were on the edge of the world, and reminded me of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The mist dampened all sounds, and few people had ventured out of the café, so it was very quiet. There were no waves, just the gentle lapping of the high tide against the giant sea wall and the low intermittent boom of foghorns in the Channel. A few fishermen (and they were all men) cast their lines into the void. They and their partners were settled for the day, equipped with chairs, picnic boxes and flasks. The white cliffs, which normally tower above the beach and the chalk grassland of the reserve, were barely visible, only their base looming out of the murk. The reflections of the plants in the pools seemed more sharply defined than the surrounding landscape. The collage extra was a rushed job, but I hope gives some sense of the experience. We enjoyed the peace of this familiar seascape transformed by weather. 

The wooden tower in the main photo houses a sound installation. Normally the view beyond it extends to the port of Dover. The cliffs are faintly visible on the left of the photo. The yellow flowers covering this stretch of the cliffs were the brightest thing we saw, unmistakeably brassicas, just like the run-to-seed Brussels sprouts or curly kale which sometimes grace our vegetable garden in spring. I thought they were sea kale, but that, it seems, has white flowers. These are wild cabbage, Brassica Oleracea, sometimes also called wild sea kale. Its favourite home is right here, the chalk cliffs at both sides of the Channel, and they are common in many parts of the Kent coast. 

You can see much the same views of Samphire Hoe in the sun here, at sunset here, and read here about its origin in the spoil excavated from the Channel Tunnel. Clicking on the hashtag, I've discovered that this is my fifth Samphire Hoe blip - it's an accessible walk, close to home and, as we are discovering, interesting in many kinds of weather.