It was good to see the sea again, though the wind is sharper than when we left on Tuesday am. The two seats in the Prom shelter now have too permanent occupiers. There is the elderly man with his books and his oh so neatly folded possessions and someone else next door. Man or woman it is hard to say for they have an opened umbrella hiding their face (no doubt as a wind break but perhaps its also a privacy thing too and why not). They too have all their belongings neatly placed on the seat beyond the end of their sleeping bag but they also have a tricycle. Yes, a tricycle that they park beside them with a carrier fixed on its back. It makes me smile. It is so practical.
We saw friends and what a warm thing it was. I feasted my eyes on them. One told me that picking and consuming blackberries in October is a no no. The villagers here, he said, say that then they will have the Devil in them.
I took the coloured dirty clothes out of the laundry basket this morning only to discover, as it scampered about, that the huge spider I’d seen last week had found or made a home for itself in there.
A man shouted at me as I walked home. He was with a mate. Maybe he was drunk. He was trying on a faux-black man’s voice: ‘Hey,’ he shouted, ‘give us your money you motherfucker.’ I kept walking praying that they wouldn’t follow me and just get bored and move off. He shouted about, ‘Hey you!’ but my non-reaction clearly did the trick and they walked off towards the station. My hackles took some time to lie down.
