And no! Not one mosquito, just a chilly wind getting chillier, until by 6pm I’m at home tucked up under two doonahs after a beach walk and an afternoon of Scarlatti, Beethoven, Debussy and Schubert played by Tony Lee.
Not to mention a stained glass window dedicated to a Croatian martyr and the life story of a random stranger
I’m 62 … repressed as a child … that father shouldn’t be telling his little girl (see the lively one in the pink tulle skirt?) to calm down … and there he is, why’s he moving the car? I’ve spent the week with him and I’m fed up … we’re divorced, but I can’t afford not to live in the same house … separately you understand … it makes my grown up daughter happy, but not me … my business went bankrupt … I’m really a photographer, a writer, an artist … I’ll write a book … I should have left long ago …
Oh yes. The beach. An embraced and sheltered beach, with a wide boat ramp, scaling tables, piles of dull grey scales, fish-heads and spines, fillets removed, reminders of human carelessness. Houses lined up on the cliffs to the south.
The rock platform is broken up by rock pools, and sharp-edged verticals, and mounds the colour and shape of my daughter’s mastiff Em, rounded and sandy with grey wavy lines.
I walk with extreme caution. I’ve lost my rock-legs with long lack of use and I do not want to tumble. The clouds are gathering and the cold approaching as I round a headland and see headlands continuing north, speared by channels. Tide is low, but it won’t stay that way, so I begin making my way back to the car. Suddenly my rock-legs return and I stroll at my ease, picking my way between pools and Neptune’s necklace, and keeping away from the large hand-sized pebbles prone to roll under the careless foot.
As I reach the boat ramp, a dancing fairy of a child appears in a pink tulle skirt.
