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sea.
    It makes all sorts of sounds. Like breathing. It’s like a great alive beast, breathing heavily sometimes, and then other times it’s panting, or coughing, or even sneezing and snoring loudly. Mostly it just sighs heavily the way I do when I’m really fed up about something. (Fed up – where does that expression come from? Why does it mean miserable?) But the sighing sound is quite relaxing somehow, and so is the whole background constant sound of moving heaving water. Good for the soul, as Mum says. I like the little waves that have white lace on them and that make pretty patterns on the sand. And I love the bluey, greeny turquoise of the shallow water and the way it turns deep blue, navy blue, and dark jade green as it gets deeper. Not like the horrible brown-grey of the Thames at Shoeburyness where Grandma and Grandpop lived.
    I wonder how slowly water has to fall before the sound is a torture? How can the sound of a leaky tap or a drip from a broken gutter drive you mad, but the constant gush of a waterfall be soothing?
    And sometimes the sea booms like a drum and huge waves bash the cliffs, crashing into them as if the ocean is trying to move them out of the way so it can carry on into the whole land, take over the countryside, and the villages and towns and cities and make everything into sea, which is a pretty terrifying idea, and might well happen even here, what with global warming.
    I should think dying by tsunami must be the most awful way to die. Imagine that giant wall of water coming straight at you. Would you run? You would run, of course you would. How would you feel? Does your whole life really flash before you, when you know you are going to die? Who said that, anyway? How does anyone know that that is what happens when you know you’re going to die? Like that story you used to hear at school. That dream about falling down stairs – if you don’t wake up before you hit the bottom, you die. Well, that’s stupid. How can you know you’re going to die if you don’t wake up? What I mean is – how can someone who wakes up know what will happen if she doesn’t wake up? No one ever dies and comes back to tell us what it was like, do they? Oh, it’s too confusing and stupid.
    And think how the poor cats would feel if there was a tidal wave. They hate water, except Charlie, who always comes into the bathroom with me when I go to the loo and sits on my lap, and gets on the edge of the bath when I’m in it and pats my wet head, and drinks from the bath water, leaning right over, only her back legs hanging on the rim of the bath. I know she’ll fall in one day. She’ll scratch me when she panics. She loves me so much, she can’t bear to be away from me, and knows she’s my favourite. Every morning she rushes into the bathroom after breakfast, if I go anywhere near, even if I’m not going in there yet. She’s so funny and sweet.
    I think I’ve seen a chaffinch, which has a pink breast, and a pair of stonechats, and I’ve definitely heard a skylark. They go crazy, flying higher and higher, flapping their little wings like mad, and singing all the time. There are more of them here on the sand dunes than further along on the rocky path that runs along the cliff edge.
    I like this bit, because I can sit down on the tussocky grassy sand and read, and have a rest. The path further along, nearer the house, is too narrow to sit down on.
    I wish I had a dog with me. A dog would chase birds though, and I’d have to pick up the poo and put it in a plastic bag – yuk! Perhaps a dog isn’t such a good idea. If only the cats were brave enough to walk with me. I think Flo might be. Maybe I’ll test her out – try little walks at a time. But if she meets a dog, what could she do? She’d be terrified.
    Note: The blackbirds here in Cornwall are not as good at singing as the ones in London. Really, I’ve noticed. They sound sort of wooden and stilted as if they are just beginning to learn to play the