15th April 2024
Bouncing and jumping and beating the rain
Change again. Wind from the west and thick, high, cottonwool cloud, clumps divided by small purple bruises. The temperature has fallen high to low, brace for storms and a new weather system.
Change and the stress of getting used to new conditions could well be traded for consistency. Let’s be bored for a while and have the space to think about other things.
On the beach the wind is a stiff south westerly at twenty seven miles per hour with gusts above forty. There is a moderate wind warning. It doesn’t feel as if any of us needs to be moderately warned about the wind, rather it has blown us back in time to February or early March rather than a comfy, nothing-much-to-think-about mid April.
If it weren’t for the wind, the grey skies and the foreboding rain, anyone would think it was spring. This wind does have a direct impact on the speed of changing however, there’s no lingering about pondering socks when it’s this breezy.
The sea loves it. We’re an hour or so before low tide and it’s bouncing and bumping and breaking and blowing, not too deep, small ups and downs, enough to lift an adult but hardly enough to tip one over.
The Professor Perus and Cousin are dubious about the swimming. Perhaps they will paddle or have a walk? Are the waves too big?
Rupert’s Mum gets in and then Bikini and within ten minutes everyone is in the sea bouncing and jumping and bobbing up and down at the same time, being pulled south at a fast rate of knots, bouncing and bobbing, bounding, bumping against the water and riding back again, slightly surprised at being in the North Sea at this time of the morning.
The sun found us, briefly, and was noted and revered. It quickly placed little silver tops on the waves, like shiny ice peaks. At the same time, it lit the paths between waves and the white frilly edges of froth.
There are flatish sequences, when it momentarily seems as if the waves have disappeared but, just when we think that the swim will be easy, the wind puffs and we’re bobbing and bouncing again.
This morning is a ride at a water park but rather less predictable. Mostly we can touch the bottom, sometimes not, mostly we’re watching the big waves crash on the sandbank, sometimes not, sometimes we’re worried if we’ll get out unscathed, mostly not.
Cousin gingerly returned to the beach first, surprised and delighted at having got into such a bouncy, flouncy sea, then the Perus. We’re two hundred yards down wind of our clothes at this point where I decide to get out on my knees, just to make sure. Finally without fuss, Rupert’s Mum and the Canadian and eventually Bikini return to the beach.
It is Monday morning. We bounced and we beat the storm.
.