IT'S WINTER HERE

I've nearly gone. There was to be another book review before the sleep-tight round up but I decided if I couldn't say anything nice about it, it would be pointless even to mention. So now I need the wind to calm and the sun to come out so I can trot around with my camera to say a temporary 'Goodbye' to the plants and trees and streets which form the subject matter for this blog.

But I can't let you miss today.

This was here at mid-day. It's not a sea to swim in, to paddle in or to surf in. It's a sea to die in. You go too close at your peril.

This man is not as close as he seems. Chesil Beach goes down in steps so although it looks as though he is standing at the edge of the surf, he isn't. The sea is below him - which may give you an idea of the size of these waves.

There were lots of people. By 'lots' I suppose at any one time there were a dozen. But they were coming and going - and virtually every one of them with a camera. I have not done justice to this sea - but the air was dense with salt and spray. It was reckless. Cameras don't like salt and spray. But I wasn't the only one who couldn't resist it. (Camera menders may be in for a bonanza!)

Incidentally, the black blodge on the waves is a huge mat of seaweed.

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LEAVES, SEEDS AND FLOWERS

Just as human seeds contain within them the imprint and hope of a being yet to form, the seeds of seasons are mirrored and grown in every month of the year. Spring holds the beginning of autumn and autumn is torn between memories of summer past and spring to come. It's a mixture of natural cycle and muddle.

I'd say a blackberry flower is muddled when it turns up just as the cold is kicking in.

That chicory flowers are like enthusiastic teenagers, determined to enjoy the party right to the very last minute.

That buddleia bushes and trees show a wonderful confidence in producing new starts of leaves just as their flowers are turning from lilac and purple to dingy dark brown.

That the seeds of wild clematis - Old Man's Beard - flamboyantly flaunt beauty in the face of their own aging and knowingly turn their faces from the inevitable. Their glorious champagne fizz and froth will soon sink into grey, Miss Havishamesk, dusty decrepitude. Fresh snow is lovely when it falls but when it has been trampled and fouled it's . . . well it's not as nice as when it was new. Ditto Old Man's Beard.