Southbourne

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!’

Tuesday Today

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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.

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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.

Silly Saturday – Strange Storms

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Exactly six years ago we had just had the Valentine’s Night Storm; we did not know it was called that till we had had it. The next year, in 2015, the Meteorological Office of the United Kingdom and Met Eireann decided to name storms in advance, with an alphabetical list of popular names they picked out from Facebook. It was claimed this would make people take storms more seriously and it worked, because since they started naming storms they have got worse, with more flooding. Last weekend it was Storm Ciara and as you read this we will be having Storm Dennis. Female and male names alternate, so luckily by the time we get to N ( probably in a few weeks time ) we can have Storm Noah.

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Storms come with amber and red warnings, plus constant warnings from weather people in the cosy news studios to stay away from coastal areas. They then show photographs the public have taken just before they get washed away by waves and ‘go over’ to reporters being blown off the sea front to give us live coverage. It is so windy we can’t actually hear what they are saying.

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Mike Jefferies Photography

This photo of Storm Ciara, thanks to Mike Jefferies Photography, saving me getting wet, appeared on Facebook. It is the famous cob at Lyme Regis in Dorset, one of the settings for Jane Austin’s novel Emma, where a trip to the seaside nearly ends in tragedy when a young lady contrives to fall off the cob. I don’t think the weather was this bad in that scene, but if you ever go to Lyme Regis the cob slopes and if it is wet it is very slippery.

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Meanwhile back to Saturday morning 15th February 2014; after a night of the wind shaking our house I suggested ( insisted ) we go down to the cliff top at high tide for some bracing fresh air and this is what we saw.

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It gave me an idea for a story and eventually became the opening scene for At The Seaside Nobody Hears You Scream.

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Silly Saturday – Not More Air Festival Shots…

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The Red Arrows flew over our road, but I missed the shot.

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Some people alter their whole house to get a good viewing point.

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Ice cream war?

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You need the right lens if you want to get good shots of the aeroplanes.

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Boats are easier to photograph.

 

 

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So are buses.

 

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Which ones are real?

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This is as far as Spiderman got!

 

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Which ride would you try?

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I got some good pictures of smoke…

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… and bikes.

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Meet the pilots.

For actual pictures of planes see Wednesday’s and Friday’s blogs.

 

https://tidalscribe.wordpress.com/2018/09/05/to-the-pier/

 

https://tidalscribe.wordpress.com/2018/09/07/friday-flash-fiction-flies