In the last of the evening light, I took a bag of rubbish over to the bins on the other side of the park.

And at that point saw it was just a quick few sandy steps over a gap in the dune scrub to the shared solitude of a beach at sunset.

People were walking slowly, in twos, in family or alone. Soft, barefoot steps. Sandals swinging at the side.
Cold sand tracks up or down the beach, winding randomly like the final brief watermark of each wave as it exhales out onto the sand.

A boy laughs delightedly as someone tries to skip a rock out into the flat draw of the water. It bounces once with promise, and then is swallowed in foam.

Pink rolls onto grey on the sound of a slow breathing sea. Every few steps or so everyone seems to stop and look out over it all.

Or perhaps they are looking in.

Such is the ritual of a beach walk at sunset.
For those who know how.