For those that don’t live in the luxury of such close proximity to the sea allow me to share some of the ocean’s majesty. Last weekend I was looking out over a mill pond calm ocean at this time, so flat it looked like you could walk on it. At the end of this week the east coast has had a wintry turn and there is nothing that reminds you of the strength of the ocean better than a windy day. Despite being a sun lover I watched enthralled as the ocean was whipped into a viscous and unforgiving frenzy last night.
Near horizontal winds howling along the front gave the perfect opportunity to meet neighbours in the alleys and side roads that criss-cross the town. The brown, foaming waves spent the night smashing over the promenade, tearing at mans rude inclusion in their path. For me this mornings view is the first one of winter. There are no tourists on the beach, indeed no people at all since the dog walkers have not yet ventured out. The sand that is so gently lapped by summer seas is now bright and clean. Like some great industrial washing machine the ocean has hurled all of the beach around in a maelstrom of rage and cleaned every trace of the summer.
It is like nature is washing off the grime of the summer and refreshing itself. The sun is breaking over a much calmer see and there is little witness of the fury which whipped such waves up overnight. But there in the middle of the beach, as if to warn us of its power, the ocean has deposited an enormous tree root. This is not the driftwood that you see in shops this is the root of some great tree. I like to think that, like a tired mother, this is natures way of telling us that if she ‘has to clean our room one more time’.
I apologise for this line which will mean little to most of you but is important nonetheless. Today’s value is 4363 because I slowed at the end of the week discipline, it would seem, is a must.