14th January from the West Cliff Green, Bournemouth

Dramatic lashing rain. Histrionic outbursts from the wind howling through the pines like a chorus in a Greek tragedy. The trees themselves are waving their arms and fingers as if in session one of an acting class (“Be a tree”). Meanwhile the sea continues like a continuo from the orchestra pit. A drizzle of applause and then on encore the wind dies down and the sky lightens. A pigeon claps its wings and glides across the backdrop its wings held in a stiff V shape. The rest, as they say, is silence.

From 14th January 2022

Another breathtakingly beautiful dawn. Framed by the sable shapes of apartment blocks and ilex trees, the bay stretches out like beaten polished steel to the horizon where it is softened by a gentle mist. But the sky shimmers upwards with colours that transform minute by minute. Magenta, plush orange, pale yellow and a pale green that conitnues up to the still purple zenith. A distant gull crosses the scene completing its perfection. #Bournemouth #westcliff #January #winter

From 14th January 2021

The fine drizzle turns to bigger drops of rain and then stops altogether. The steady breeze is fresh. Refreshing. Although the sky is a uniform grey it is bright enough to reflect with a silver sheen of the wet tarmac. The sea is no longer angry but the state of the tide means it is loud enough to fill the damp air far enough inland to blend with the rush and sigh of the early traffic. Under the pines it is dark and still. A pigeon coos. Great Tits fill the air with their annoying call "Teacher, teacher, teacher." A crow lords it from a high branch quite aware of its superior intelligence.

Later:

The rain is falling steadily from the sombre clouds. The setting sun creeps out from the grey and splashes a brilliant lemon yellow light on the buildings opposite. For a moment they are bathed in pure colour. It is a breathtaking effect you only see at this time of the year when the sunset is low enough to shine beneath the clouds.

From 14th January 2016

The dawn has put on her loveliest dress of pale nursery blue trimmed with pink gold lace. Her butter-wouldn't-melt demeanour denies all knowledge of recent storms and floods. But there is a chill about her wide eyed innocence and heaped around the horizon, great clots of purple clouds look like mud on the skirts of her pretty dress and perhaps she's not to be trusted. And then quite suddenly the sun leaps out from behind the cloud in delicious splendour and all doubts are put aside.