18th October from the West Cliff Green, Bournemouth
Here and there is a sugaring of frost; the first this autumn. Everywhere else is wet with a heavy dew. The sky is intensely blue with a tiny white scratch from an airliner on its way to Tenerife. The breeze is cold but the sun is warm. A cloud of pigeons fragments among the trees. Wagtails sail across the grass in their jerky, flight. Always on the look out for fun. On a lamp post, a crow demonstrates its newly found gurgling call to his mate who seems singularly unimpressed. And then the grey clouds roll in and the sea shivers into little ripples and bigger waves.
From 18th October 2021
A boisterous, buffeting breeze under a lumpy, racing cloud-cover. The waves are big and grey and where they have excavated a bund of sand with a bulldozer for the big piling machines to work replacing the groynes, the white tops of the waves are crashing over. Excavators work hard piling sand on sand as it steadily washes away. On the Clifftop, because morost of the foliage ie evergreen there is little sign of autumn except for the bracken and the long grass patches and the sweet chestnuts which are all turning chocolatey and golden. Mallow and foxgloves are putting out leaves ready for next year. Flocks of gulls and pigeons are tossed around in the wind. #Bournemouth #WestCliff #autumn
From 18th October 2019
The sky is still pale blue to the west but it is smudged over with heavy black clouds. The wind is chilly and buffeting. The roar of the waves at the bottom of the tide chases at my heels like an insistent small dog as I walk along the cliff top. Out side the Toilets I see a group of guys, shoulders hunched against the breeze. The dealer circles them on his push bike. You can get anything by Deliveroo these days. They know me and I know them. We don’t bother each other. We usually nod and exchange a few words but tonight they scatter in the wind like scraps of burnt paper from a bonfire. Two youngish men dressed in dinner suits and shorty raincoats look straight out of a sixties spy film. I haven’t got the heart to tell them their western style bow ties are wonky.
From 18th October 2015
A flat, grey dawn. A thumbnail scratch of gold to show that the sun is there somewhere. The air is chill and sweet. In the bay a party of gulls is squabbling over the free breakfast the fisherman has found for them. On the clifftop a family of wagtails are busily inspecting the turf, their tails, as advertised, flicking with delight.
