21st September from the Westbourne Green, Bournemouth

A lazy, warm afternoonwith the merest hint of a fresh breeze to make the tranquil sea shiver in delight. Wrens and gold finches twitter and chortle from the depths of the old Scots Pine. A robin flies out and shows its matery of the cheery song from a nearby fence. The man who sleeps in the shelter shows how he has befriended the pigeons who take food from his hands. He encourages one to jump up onto his head.

Clouds of large white butterflies flit among the dried grasses and brown seed heads sometimes taking time out to joust with others, spiralling up into the blue sky before settling down to continue with the day’s work. A crow surveys all from the top of a lamp post. He knows he is in charge and tells the world so.

From 21st September 2021

The sun sets in a mass of streaks and golden jumble leaving smudges and trails of pink in the West. Meanwhile the harvest moon climbs up in the east, her face diffused by a thin veil of ice crystal clouds. A raft of seagulls have settled on the sea close inshore diving and squabbling over a run of sand eels.As our part of the world darkens a couple of fishing boats purr across the bay towards harbour while others ride out on dark horizon, their high intensitry lights piercing the blackness.

From 21st September 2015

Drizzle hangs in the air. A grey blanket of cloud muffles the sky apart from a bright leaking of dawn light over the horizon to the south and west which throws the Isle of Wight into sullen relief. In the other direction, fingers of rain creep down over the Purbeck Hills towards the bay. A woman swims out and back from the beach below. She has the whole seven miles of golden sands to herself. The clifftop is the domain of pigeons and magpies save for the occasional Liberal or two , anoraks hunched disconsolately to the world as if wondering what is to become of them.