About words and signs

I am an Artist and Writer, living and working in London. I am grateful for all the things I have been able to do in my life and for what I am doing now. I serve Christ and seek to share Him with others…

Climping Beach The Return

Posted on September 5, 2012 by words and signs

The smell has gone and the shore has been cleansed by the planets great sterilizing unit. The waves still break, but only small red balls of seaweed float onto the shallows, and it is not unpleasant to swim over and push them away.

The water is deep marine green with white breakers that gently massage the shoreline. It is a relief to find sand underfoot. The pebbly beaches along this coast are really one long gigantic shoreline and are very similar to each other in many ways.

Climping beach seems more ordinary, with less human interference, hence our return to it, and to the realization that the sky, wind and water are the determining factors in the physical state of the beach. These huge and vital forces are the driving mechanisms of the earth.

West Beach Littlehampton West Sussex

Posted on September 3, 2012 by words and signs

A very blustery day with gales incoming from the sea, hence crashing waves, strong enough to knock the body over. Sea also full of a variety of seaweeds washed in by the ferocity of the tide.

Grey skies made the scene inhospitable for swimming. Down at the waters edge, standing upright was almost impossible and only with great difficulty and hands always ready to catch the stones on the beach. It felt like the ground tilted from every angle, like the surface of a balance game at a fairground. Two hours later, the skies lifted and sunshine broke through. The waves still churned, but the turn of the tide had dissipated the weed and the water is pale green, though milky with the dashing breakers.

Once past the breaker line, the water is pleasant and exhilarating with the mountains that build up behind the retreating tide, dictating the ebb and flow.

West Parade West Worthing West Sussex

Posted on September 2, 2012 by words and signs

Stinking piles of seaweed being thrown up on the beach. Subsequent deliveries of the salty odour were continually churned up and drying and smelling in the hot sun.

Every type of seaweed is here, sea lettuce, gut weed, bladder wrack, flat wrack, thong weed, sea belt and furbelows and lots more…

A cormorant perches on the beach marker, watching the water and preening itself, even it knows not to enter the sea-soup.

I will take the lead from the expert and just watch the emerald water farther out…longingly..

Sandy Bay Hayling Island

Posted on August 30, 2012 by words and signs

Wild seas, even though a beautiful sunny day. The wooden groynes are replaced by huge boulders, to stop the waves washing the stony beaches away to France.

The deep blue, the foamy white and the golden stones meet together in satisfying tones of rich colour. Swimming was abandoned due to fear. At the turn of the bay, the waves break ninety degrees to the shore in a line of white.

The outline of the Isle of Wight can be clearly seen across the stretch of sea.

One golden day I stepped beyond the shore
My footprints no longer any more
Tread on sand or in billows roar
Beyond the horizon I no more…

Eastoke Hayling Island

Posted on August 30, 2012 by words and signs

Great breakers crashing onto the shore with power to sweep away all, and graze skin along the stone grater, by the massive drag of the undertow. Deep emerald water pounding against the stones and throwing up various varieties of seaweed – Long thin Thong weed; brown leathery Red Rags; balls of Coral weed and Bladder Wrack.

To linger on the shore means a fight against the tide, so it is best to make it past the breakwater point, where it is calmer and swimming safer. In the depths, the huge welling up of strength of the ocean, which can carry the body along without effort and deposit it on the beach.

Hold tight with feet and hands against the waves, that build up again with the next breaker.

They will pass through the sea of trouble
I will strengthen them in the LORD and in his name they will walk,” declares the LORD.
Zechariah 10

Brackelsham Bay West Sussex

Posted on August 29, 2012 by words and signs

A popular holiday beach – lots of people, inflatable’s and mini surf boards. The water is ultramarine and lively with breakers. The waves roll in as large humps and break for surfers on boards, or just swimsuits.

Two large ridges of large stones, lean against a man-made wall, but as they sweep to the sea, they quickly become sand. The ground remains sandy far out into the sea and ideal for messing about. Curly leaves on low bearing plants adorn the beach and a variety of other plants, as if from another planet.

Lolling about on the billows is fun and gives release from the baking sun, which has no visible effect on the great blue seething mass.

A clear blue sky with a few whiffs of small cumulus and in the distance spread out the Isle of Wight.

Selsay Bill West Sussex

Posted on August 28, 2012 by words and signs

A very steep, narrow beach into deep water. The colours change from grey to green in twenty minutes, as the sun returned bringing warmth and brightness.

The beach is short and includes concrete and rusty metal, which hold their own charm. The swim was short, as the elements of the shore are very similar to other beaches along the coastline. The water was milky and the swell, quite powerful, providing a necessary opportunistic judgment for getting out of the water.

The attempts to humanise the shoreline, has had the effect of dictating where the sea can or can’t go, but the relentless buffeting make a permanent mark on the human intervention, and remind us that the sea is in charge.

Pagham Beach West Sussex

Posted on August 28, 2012 by words and signs

Still, quiet, Sunday morning sea, with hardly a break in the seemless green. Sky and sea meld together to become a backdrop of serenity.

The water is clear, green, even at the slight breaking of the edges. Out in the deep, the shadowy outline of the pebbles is still visible. Stretching out is total relief and cool soothing balm, as yesterday’s snatch of sunburn melts away in the placid water. The world seems well and magnificent in this unbroken scenery of blue, green and light, and the pressure of the city a forgotten dream.

“The sea belongs to him, for he made it. His hands formed the dry land too. Come le tus bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care…” Psalm 95

Bognor Regis seafront West Sussex

Posted on August 27, 2012 by words and signs

Glorious sky and ocean meet in a dark ultamarine blue line, which graduates towards the shore. Small brown stones are easier on the soles of the feet and roll like shale as the tide drags them back and plunges them forward, all individually smooth and sparkling in the wet.

The sea gets deep quickly with no chance of feeling sand between the toes. Just strike out for the depths, away from floating string-like weed and feel the tide heave and quell in a rhythmic melody.

Swimming is easy as only one other person braves the deep, and to glide is cooling and trusting. The force of the waves is mainly forward so the body is not dragged in any particular direction. Laconic seagulls stubbornly sit and bob in their natural territory and even when approached on the water, they are not spooked.

Later in the day, the swell increases with surf-like incoming waves and the powerful drag backwards in to the seabed, making leaving not for the careless.

Reach out to deeper water, where swimming is rewarding and keeps the soul away from land, society and strife…

Climping shore: West Sussex

Posted on August 25, 2012 by words and signs

Sea green for real with glinting sunlight catching the tops of the swell. Waves crashing intently against golden stones and ivory shells. The sea approaches the shoreline as a diagonal, bearing brown seaweed in clumps and depositing it on the edge, where water meets earth.

It is off-putting because of the familiar smell of seaweed rotting like dead carcasses of sea creatures from down, down deep, as the ocean churns up sea plant life with every dragging wave. It’s not so bad and only the consequence of the incoming tide. The brown rafts of weed queue up to land on the incoming beach, like airplanes circling the airport and gently bourn up onto the rest on the runway of the shore.

Swimming is pleasant as ever, and not cold. The swell bobs the body as a small cork in a huge glass of sparkling champagne, bringing cheer to the spirits and the ability to forget.

Meeting the seaweed clumps is disconcerting and they feel stringy to the touch and almost solid who grasped. It is easy to brush them away like troubles on a sunny day.

cold selkie

one swimming in the wild…

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