seaside

Monday Madness

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 17 Comments
When one gate stays open..

Another gate stays closed

When your neighbours get a new front door.

When your neighbours build an extension with a penthouse aviary.

Look up…

Look down.

Heatwave brings return of The Triffids.

Macro Madness – guess what? Answers below, but not necessarily in the right order.

THE END

Beach Hut Tales

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 29 Comments
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!’

Beach Hut Drama

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 15 Comments
On Valentine’s night February 2014 Britain had a huge storm, not dramatic compared with world disasters, but several people were killed and the walls of our brick house shook. In the morning the storm was still raging and tales emerged of dramas; the public were warned to stay away from coastal areas, so I looked up the time of high tide, 9am and told Cyberspouse we must walk to the cliff top. We could lean straight into the howling wind coming off the sea, safe from being blown off the cliff, but as we peered over the edge we had a shock.


Beach huts were reduced to matchsticks and heavy gas bottles blown along the promenade. Naturally I insisted to Cyberspouse that we go down, along with other sightseers. Beach hut owners were shocked to see their huts no longer existed and searched the wreckage for any belongings they could salvage. Of course losing your home is far worse than a little wooden box and easy to say as our hut, further along and on an upper level was fine! The owners who had lost beach huts certainly did not look happy. But I had an idea for a story, what would happen to anyone down on the promenade that night? my idea even became the start of my novel ’At The Seaside Nobody Hears You Scream.’ Read more about the novel on my About page.

Beach Boxes

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 23 Comments
Winter walk on the promenade.

An Australian visitor once commented ’Why would you go to the beach and sit in a wooden box.’ Fair comment, though we hope to sit outside it in the sun, it is good to retreat into if it rains or gets very windy. jThere has been unexpected blogger interest in beach huts. They are all different, no that’s not true, rows and rows of identical huts all the same size, though interiors can be very creative. our huts have no facilities except callor gas rings, perfect for mulled wine at Christmas.

When we first moved here the late Cyberspouse was at work and thought he would ring up the council and ask for a beach hut. He was told there was a six year waiting list and we did wait six years! It was worth it if you consider that had we not gone on the list we would not have got one at all. He liked to cycle there after work and have some peace and quiet – if I wasn’t there…


Beach Lodges with kitchen, toilet, shower and sleeping for six. Rent from the council for mid week or weekend stays. I can’t tell you how much, that would depend on the date and I couldn’t negotiate the website, though I gather you have to be quick.

Next time – beach hut drama!

Tuesday Today

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 29 Comments
Several bloggers mentioned they had not heard of beach huts, so I could not resist taking these pictures today, stopping for lunch at my beach hut on a walk to Bournemouth.
I won’t tell you where these are as there is not enough room for everyone to visit at once. As you can see, I was the only one at home today, though generally there were many people out and about.

Writers’ Wooden Sheds.

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 16 Comments

Marina Sofia at Finding Time To Write has a fun Friday post where she finds a selection of pictures with a theme. From ‘which castle would you like to live in’ to ‘how about one of these unusual libraries?’ Today she posted pictures of writers’ sheds in the garden and unlike castles and mansions I do actually have one of those. We call it the Aunty Evelyn Memorial Summer House in memory of the aunt we all thought had no money, but left seven of us equal shares. Enough to buy my little retreat. Alas it is currently full of stuff belonging to other family members, so you are not privileged to peek inside. I do also have a beach hut, a six foot wooden box ( not a coffin ) that sits on a piece of concrete rented at an exorbitant rate from the council. Most beach hut people use their hut to get changed, boil the kettle, eat, read and sun bathe, but I also try to get my money’s worth writing / scribbling.


Where is your favourite spot to write? Do you like to be connected to electricity or scribble first drafts on paper?

This is where T S Eliot wrote The Wasteland while convalescing in Margate, Kent.