7th December from the West Cliff Green, Bournemouth
Voices carry on the still air. Dialogues just out of hearing. The sea rustles like an impatient audience ready for the curtain to rise. The sharp, strong light illuminates the Green beautifully like a stage set. Every little view between the bushes or the prospect along a path is waiting for the drama to occur. Every empty seat is waiting for the play to begin. A robin, it’s song carrying clear across the clifftop begins the overture.
From 7th December 2021
Living on the cliff edge as we do, we get used to windy weather. Whether it's the gentle zephyrs of summer or howling March Gales, there are very few days when the air is quite still. So the bushes and trees are sculpted by the wind and lean at awkward angles such that a bit of a push might have them over. And they do fall from time to time but mostly when they're weakened by age or a bit of fungus. On a day like today with the storm raging I can't help hurrying through the trees. A few sizeable branches have fallen and a lot of twigs and old leaves but nothing out of the ordinary. The cold rain is diven hard by the rain and the sea is boiling white. Crows sitting along the fence only have to spread their wings a little way and the gale picks them up and whirls them away with no effort on their part at all. #Bournemouth #WestCliff #winter #december
From 7th December 2020
There’s nothing that can be said about fog that Dickens didn’t say in Chapter 1 of Bleak House. The mist softens and makes mysterious every dark shape. Bushes drip with moisture. Beyond the cliff edge there is nothing. A grey wall. I can hear the mournful swash and rush of the surf and the distant discorporate voices of the spirit gulls that inhabit that empty place. It reminds me of a great unpainted backcloth framed by monochrome trees. Streetlamps hang like fuzzy orange balls in mid air. Early morning joggers appear and disappear. A blackbird chip chip chips a warning whilst a pigeon, the very voice of summer, coos breathily bravely until it is swallowed by the fog.
