I lay on the cliff. At my head, a pillow of yellow flowers; at my feet the North Sea breaking on black rocks. We were on our annual holiday at Lindisfarne, the Holy Island right on the edge of Britain. The sea air was thick with the twitter of swallows and the wailing cries of the seals. The swallows flew repeatedly over me as they hawked the grassy beds of the cliff, their metallic blue flashing in the sun. They came so close that twice I felt the brush of one of their tuning fork tails over my bare feet.  Slowly the tide ebbed. The sealsong grew ever louder as more and more of the huge animals beached up on the sand eel beds emerging beyond St Cuthbert’s Isle.All around me the cliff grasses shimmered in the breeze, and the harebells glittered in the sun. The light was as