cliffs

Sunday Seaside Saunter

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Goats keep the vegetation under control on the cliff.

Fish and chips

Queue for ice creams

https://www.lucanart.com/contact

Local artist Miroslav Lucan

Portrait by Mathew Byrom of Southbourne Metal Detectorist hero Darren Wiles.

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/24340520.bournemouth-metal-detectorist-suprised-beach-art/

Primary school leavers jump in the sea in their school uniforms to celebrate the end of the school year.

Time to leave the beach…

Saturday Stroll – Steep Steps

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Hop off the bus and walk up to the West Cliff.

Stop to catch your breath and admire the view.

Onwards and upwards

Highcliff Hotel, popular with politicians attending party conferences.

Not another mermaid tail!

Time to go down to the beach.

Take the cliff lift…

…or perhaps not…

Follow in the footsteps of our leaders as they walk from their hotel to the Bournemouth International Centre.

Look for another mermaid tail.

This is your clue where to see the gathering of all the mermaid tails before they are auctioned off.

Beach Hut Tales

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We are having a heatwave, bad for my garden, but perfect for being in the sea, except first you have to get to the beach or your beach hut…

Yesterday after writers’ group I decided to get on a bus and get off at Woodland Walk, which as its name suggests is a cool and pleasant walk from a busy road to the cliff top. As soon as I left the shade of the trees the heat hit me. I crunched across our toasted cliff top to approach my beach hut from the other direction to my usual walk from home.

The stone building is not a castle, but the toilet block by our beach huts.
The descent down the ravine, more fun going down than up.

The hot weather reminded me of last year when my daughter-in-law sent a clip of a beach hut on fire. I quickly ascertained it wasn’t our strip. Everyone was safe, but I imagine there wasn’t much left of the beach hut or its neighbours! Gas rings, flapping curtains and wooden huts are a recipe for disaster perhaps. In the local paper the owner was quoted ’my nephew came to fetch me and said Aunty I think the beach hut is on fire… ’ hmm, my suspicious mind wondered what the boy might have been up to..

I fully expect that one day calamity will strike my hut, either one of the regular cliff falls or a cliff fire in scorching weather. But other dramas also occur. I am now a member of that group ’widows who sit in beach huts.’ There are three of us in my little strip and it is only recently I heard the stories of the other two ladies, widowed a good while. We were all chatting when the most senior said to the other ’I don’t think you were here back then when my husband died.’

‘Oh yes I was,’ she replied ’I remember doing CPR on him on the beach hut floor!’

Friday Flash Fiction 111 – Plunging

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Is he going in, surely not…

Yes he is, fully clothed.

Should I do something?

I can’t stop him, I can only watch helplessly from the cliff top.

There’s no one else around in this awful weather and the rain beating against my face makes it impossible to see him properly now.

Impossible to see if the man now being knocked over by the diagonal waves is trying to retreat back to the shore or allowing himself to be taken.

I came out without my phone, to escape from technology, to drown my worries in the storm. Has the man out there chosen a more drastic way to drown his thoughts?