the mother tongue of our imagination

Eliot from The Mill on the Floss:

"These familiar flowers, these well-remembered bird notes, this sky with its fitful brightness, these furrowed and grassy fields, each with a sort of personality given to it by the capricious hedgerows — such things as these are the mother tongue of our imagination ..."

If mountains are my present, then the sea is surely my past. 

These past few weeks in Dorset, I've slipped quietly back into that past life. Now it is time to start preparing for the off, it feels almost impossible to leave the grey waters of the channel, the pebbly beaches and the comforting simplicity of their beach hut behind once more.  

Of course, I shan't be sorry to return to my little mountain life. I just know it won't be long before the siren song of the sea starts calling me again...