Country diary: the elements collide in a rite of autumn

Budle Point, Northumberland: As people often do when watching sunsets, we slip into a reverent silence, as if observing a ceremonyAs a cold easterly whips the Northumberland coast, the blood-orange ball of the setting sun seems to be crashing slowly into Budle Bay, turning the river that meanders through the sand and mudflats into liquid fire. We are meant to be hurrying back to the car, but I come over a brow on Budle Point to find my partner sitting rapt on a bench, all sense of haste dissipat