10th December from the West Cliff Green, Bournemouth
It is fortunate that there has been no rain recently. Despite the intense frost, there are very few places to slip on the paths. Instead, every little scrap of gravel is coated with a fine rime that sparkles beneath the walkers’ feet. Crystals of ice that have melted and refrozen over night have slipped down from the roof of the Shelter to make a little treasure trove on the step. The air is pinching but still. The sea is flat clam and decorated with little boats silhouetted in the glare of the sun reflected off the mirror smooth surface. The sky is silvery blue and the horizon is decorated with a frieze of white billowing clouds. A female greenfinch starts out of a bush and weaves her way between branches in a characteristic rolling flight. A pigeon coos.
From 10th December 2021
The silver blue, corrugated, cross-hatched sea reflects the cloudless sky. Parallel lines of the swell rise up and sink down lethergically. As the sun dips towards the horizon , long golden beams reach through the trees and illuminate everything they touch with a warm afternoon light. But the air is bitingly cold. The big yellow eacavator demolishing the Hotel Riviera nibbles away at the upper floors whilst the orange one delicately picks up tiny laths and small pieces of board from the rubble heap and deposit them onto the wood pile. The wagtails bob and skitter about the path whilst an excited party of gulls and crows surround a lady throwing crusts for them. #Bournemouth #westcliff #winter #december
From 10th December 2019
A hard, stinging icy rain driven by a blusterous, bullying breeze (actually it's a devilish wind but thought you might appreciate the alliteration). The sea is white and churning. Four or five crows pull at a patch of bare ground in the lee of a gorse bush. They skulk off at my approach. I am the only living creature out here on the vivid green, watery clifftop. And even I'm going in now.
