'We knew that this wasn’t the whole story, the only story, the gaps told a different tale. There was no way to complete a stamp album. It was an atlas of cancellations.' Longbarrow 2021 highlights #10: 'Last Collection' by Brian Lewis longbarrowblog.wordpress.com/2021/12/23/las…

"When the last manager has left the office for the day, 6pm, 7pm, I will set up at the photocopier and make images of the images, adjusting the contrast and the density, the ratio set to 71%, the colour information discarded in the mono print."

"There is a little hut, just ahead, at the foot of the embankment. It seems to be in two parts, joined in the middle, both parts are concrete, a short cement track to the south. The flat roofs don’t match, one half is concrete, the other half is felt."

"Next to the hut, facing the embankment, is a tall wooden pole with a six-sided metal marker at the top. It is a symbol, the yellow is intentional, the rust and erosion are not. Three or four specks of sky show through, blue, grey, blue, blue."

"A stone groyne in the tidal flats and several more ahead, the drainage ditch on a southward turn, the embankment on a southward turn. A dry sluice, a stone panel in the sea wall, a metal railing to the shore. A second sluice. A second hut, a doorway without a door."

"I look back into Coryton. The flare is gone but I can still see the white drums on the wharfside. It might be Canvey, I think, the oil tanks, the depot. I don’t know. I don’t know what to expect. A small rise of land across the river and a small rise of land across the marshes."

"I am resigned to St Mary’s Bay, the buckling bank, the collapsing pace, the distance to the low flat headland. There is a fence across the sea wall and a fence to hold it back from the beach. The new fence stands in the ruins of the old fence. I am further in and further out."

"There are no new features, water features, land features. As I reach the turn for the headland I see the dull white wharves of Coryton or Canvey. It is useless. Each scene is laid upon the last, 98%, 97.5%, 97%. I think of taking out the map but the map is not the problem."

"A thin white crest scrolls back from the tidal flats. Cargo on the water, I see the containers and their colours before I see the ship. It is trying to leave the estuary, is it port or starboard on the right, if asked I would answer starboard, I couldn’t answer why."

"A low frequency that I can’t match to the image. I reach the headland and take out the map. West Point. It is marked on the sheet but not on the ground. In the next square the axes meet, northings and eastings, blue on blue, 80, 81, 81, 80."

"80, 79. There are four small squares marked in outline, marked as ruins, just below West Point. I look to my right, to where they should be, and count seven concrete sheds, north to south, one row of three, two rows of two, overgrown and unroofed."

"A short sandy beach, not quite a bay, fills a dip in the foreshore. The line of the bank has straightened a little, I follow Essex less and less, the land falls away behind Canvey. Ahead of me a fence and gate tie the drainage ditch to the tidemarks."

"I lose patience with the scenery and consider my boots, they are 14 years old, they are not good boots. The seams are cracked. The grips have worn down. The eyelets press into the insteps. A cloud-shadow settles on the drainage ditch and extinguishes the light on the water."

"The embankment winds through a slow south-east turn, the minutes pass, I fix on a little blackstone spit and a small iron cross. The cross sinks into bramble, it is almost all that remains of a field boundary. I can’t make anything of this. I am further and further behind. "

"There are six concave octagonal stars set in the solid double doors, black on red, Pagoda Bank above the doors in black sans serif title case and, above the lintel, custom acrylic letters, raised and red, that spell out CHINESE FIREWORKS CO."

The Perseids gone, the blackberries almost gone, seventeen years gone.

"I'm walking this route to piece together a landscape that I've known since childhood, intimately, discretely, fragmentarily." "Slow Networks": seventy miles, thirty-five hours, four counties, two long barrows. longbarrowpress.substack.com/p/slow-networks

"The light holds its shape. It's an old shape. Old as the oolites. Solid as the sarsens. It has minutes before the sun's arc, or a passing cloud, peels it away." 'Slow Networks': a walk from West Kennet to Princes Risborough. longbarrowpress.substack.com/p/slow-networks

"A red admiral, the only colour on the bridleway, the only colour in my mind. To step out of your own path, for a moment, to see yourself as a point on a line." A walk from West Kennet: seventy miles, thirty-five hours, four counties, two long barrows. longbarrowpress.substack.com/p/slow-networks