Duck! No goose…

I said I was hoping to get out for a proper walk, didn’t I? Well, I did, and the sprats are running (coming in big groups), so the egrets and the cormorants are very happy. I swear one of the egrets is employed by the Tourist Board because he loves posing for pictures. My daughter is a photography/illustration student, so she got some amazing pictures.

We ‘had’ to get cake from Bailey’s Bakes, which is a business run from a converted horsebox that gives a percentage of their profits to the Seaman’s Mission. What nicer way to remember others at Christmas than by eating s’mores and cherry Bakewell cookie bars? Mia is lovely. She used her inheritance from her grandmother to buy and fit out the horsebox. She bakes fresh every evening, using butter and simple ingredients whose names I can spell. She’s also pretty as anything, and she’s just opposite the RNLI museum and the Fishereen’s Quay and has a healthy clientele of dog walkers and photographers.

If you were wondering where I get my heroines from, then it’s because I’m lucky enough to know plenty of bright, beautiful women. (Or at least I think they’re beautiful because they know who they are and where they’re going, and the serenity and confidence that gives them shows in their faces.) She knows what I do and is adamant that the business has to have everything she can give it. Hah! I think to myself. You’re young. You haven’t read Proverbs 19:21, which says ‘Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” My Dad used to say that there was a Nigerian Hausa proverb that if you want to make God laugh, you should tell her your plans, so it’s obviously a multicultural thing.

Anyway, we took the cakes home to share with the menfolk, which I reckon means that my daughter and I were pretty heroic too, because they were gorgeous. On the way, we spotted loads and loads of black birds on the harbour. At first, we thought they were a gulp of cormorants (and isn’t that a lovely collective noun?) Then, as we got closer, we realised that it was a massive flock of Brent Geese.

A minute or so later, they took off, and you could hear their wings as they headed towards us, and I started remembering Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds.’ I wondered about ducking, then reminded myself they were geese so it wouldn’t work. Sorry, I couldn’t resist that! A group of geese in flight is called a skein, and I could see why, because they spread out like one of my skeins of embroidery thread does when I’m winding it onto a bobbin.

Then they swooped down onto the meadow that’s puddly because it’s reclaimed land, at sea level, and the sea would quite like it back. They honked, they enjoyed the fresh water after a long flight and the way that the last of the sluice works means that the ground is vibrating and bringing the worms to the surface so they had a good feed.


And it was amazing. Yes, the so-called real world was there, with all its troubles, but for an hour and a half I was down at the Harbourside, where time goes more slowly, people are kind, and just sometimes, things happen that can’t happen anywhere else. And I put that in the Windy Bay books a long, long time ago. I wish we could all go there, but you can come and see my Harbourside any time you’re in Poole. Just beware of the cakes and the sweets and the fish and chips and the Greek restaurant and all the pubs. Or go for lots of long walks, watch the birds, talk to people and enjoy every last bit of it. And to prove what amazing things happen in my beloved Harbour, have a look at this. Wouldn’t it make an amazing story? Except it’s true, which is better still. https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/25686749.exceptionally-rare-shipwreck-given-historic-england-protection/

I hope you enjoy whatever you’re doing till we meet again on Tuesday. By then, I should be able to show you my garden tidy-up and revamp plans. Yes, I know most people don’t do this in the last couple of weeks before Christmas, but this is the time of year when the nice people at Amazon reduce things like lights and planters, so I can enjoy my champagne life on lemonade money. I don’t drink of like champagne, so it’s a hot chocolate with swirly cream, marshmallows and Matchmakers lifestyle, and it is simple but good.