Too much to look at

Friday 25th April 2025

This morning’s sky was covered with grey bruises. High dark cloud, a thin wedge of light at the bottom, not sufficient sun to tint the colour of air.

The long and narrow lane made up for it. Trees newly-leafed and great bulbous Alexander as tall as the top of the car doors on both sides. ‘Moss in the middle,’ says Cousin, ‘love a lane with moss in the middle’.

The grey cloud appeared to have risen higher by the time that we reached the beach. It had broken up, become thinner, there wasn’t sun shining through exactly but light creeping in between the loosely held parts. Bruises were dark blue as well as grey now.

The flag was straight out from sea to land. Allegedly a north easterly but it was hard to detect the northern aspect. I’d come determined to swim but stood at the shoreline feeling the cold straight at me and began to doubt even at that point whether I’d actually get in to the water.

The sea itself looked like winter. Deep grey green with strong waves that made white froth and small ones flicked up to a point by the sharp wind.

The waves at the shoreline were significant but the water itself wasn’t particularly deep — it was two hours before the first high tide. I could already see Puck. He was standing, waiting for the Canadian and Rupert’s Mum and, when the waves pulled back, his top half was above the water from the waist up.

Iron Woman and Bikini swam into the distance in different directions. Unplanned. I watched and wondered over the significant waves and the alleged water temperature a now mild eight point five degrees and I remembered the wonder and the magical weightlessness of swimming among waves.

I watched as the Professor Perus indulged their heavily patented pursuit of ‘Wild Paddling’. There is an unspoken agreement never to photograph them so relentlessly are they pursued by the editor of the Weekend section of The Observer who doubtless wants to be first to cover the uber-stylish and accessible new sport.

And then the fisherman slides his three ton boat to the shoreline and single-handedly pulls his buoyed lines in order to jiggle it over the sand until suddenly he is off. At pace, as they say, out to sea, beyond the kittiwakes and the old rig, stalked by noisy breakfast-hungry herring gulls. He waves at us on the beach.

However many times I see the boat going to sea or coming in again, I am transfixed. It seems like an activity beyond location, something that happens in one way or another on shorelines around the world.

Our Lawyer and the Boatbuilder straggle as ever but get into the sea as the others are getting out and they swim and are out again before we shriek at Puck that he will sincerely become a lobster if he stays in any longer. He eventually comes out the colour of a lobster.

I change from dry swimming kit to dry clothes and feel as if no one notices that I haven’t actually got wet. I’ve almost forgotten myself. Enough distractions, ever sufficient sea.

The gorse has filled the car park with coconut.

Happy Birthday Dr Moore