27th January from the West Cliff Green, Bournemouth
The breeze is cutting and cold but it smells somehow green and fresh. The sea rolls gently in in those odd, straight corrugated ridges and furrows mirroring the horizon until the scene becomes an odd jumble of ruler straight lines and angles. The world is described by an impenetrable sort of trigonometry. A pile of feathers show where a cat or fox has surprised a pigeon. The rest of the flock wander around unconcernedly.
From 27th January 2022
The breeze has moved on round to the South West but it's stronger in that direction and laden with tiny drops of rain. The sky to the south is banded with light and dark cloud in great stripes. The waves move in to the shore in straight parallel lines mirroring the cloudscape. A couple are frowning at a map. They ask me where the Wessex Hotel is. It takes me a few seconds to puzzle it out. How quickly we forget. A ragged white dog is barrelling across the grass towards its mistress. It skids to a stop and sits there looking up at her. She finds a treat in her pocket and it is off again at full speed. #Bournemouth #WestCliff #Winter #January.
From 27th January 2021
A grey, damp average January day. Typical of January days long passed. Just over here is the remains of a Bronze Age barrow. What did Bronze Age people do on a day like today? Sit round their hut fires telling stories and waiting for the ground to dry enough to begin spring ploughing? And before them, wandering family bands making their way along the tide line looking for shellfish. Did the babies cry on their Mothers' backs for the cold? Today there are excavators and bull dozers shoring up the beach against the future. Bournemouth is built on sand. The Sands. Without all this work the sand would be gone in a few years. And then the winter storms would nibble the cliffs away and the remains of the Bronze Age barrow would disappear for ever.
From 27th January 2016
For a moment the walk through the pines is in cathedral silence, the soft carpet of needles absorbing all sound. Then the gale sweeps up the cliff face and sets up an eerie moaning in the pine tops. The branches bend and gnash and the noise is intense. At the foot of the chine the sea is thrashing itself into a chaotic mess a hundred yards off shore. It is an exhilerating start to the day.
