1st october from the West Cliff Green, Bournemouth

Residents of the Green, both permanent and temporary, always comment on the sky and how much it effects their mood. After the storms last night, the grey clouds break up. The sun shines through the the trees with summer warmth and there is a gentle breeze. The blue sky is decorated with odd shaped white clouds. There is a reassuring thump and hiss from the gentle swell on the beach. Summer is having one last hurrah. But then broken slabs of grey return and gloom settles in for the afternoon. A pair of robins are sparring on the fence, squaring up for the big fight later.

From 1st October 2021

This morning, big glassy waves thumped and grumbled on the beach, Charcoal coloured clouds heaped up row upon row and a blustery chilly wind propelled us along the clifftop. By this evening the sky was clear and cloudless and the sea corrugated with tiny ripples. Hello October.

From 1st october 2019

After my usual walk back along the cliff top (the waves are longer and more regular with a definite rhythm to their breaking. The breeze is not cold) I decide to return a longer way past the small hotels that line the main road. A man is singing through a hand-held microphone “Oobla-di Oobla-da”. The walls of the room are bare and his audience is a small group of non-plussed elderly folk. “Oobla-di Oobla-da”. At the next a single man stands in the car park smoking. He does not return my nod. Further along there is a whole gaggle of smokers on the pavement. As I turn into our road I can hear a baby crying in an hotel room. “Life goes on, Bra.”

From 1st October 2011

Hmm, October. Better get out the wellingtons and the thick woolly jumpers.... Oh no its another day in swimming shorts on the beach.