Looking Homeward

This is my current stance, looking east wishing to see the ocean across which I'll soon fly.......................home.

These images were taken in the Autumn of 2007 on a lovely day in Lyme Regis, Dorset, just along the coast from my home in Devon.

If you have grown up by the water it's hard to spend months where it's far from your daily view. In the United Kingdom nowhere is really far from the sea. Living on a small island means you are either on the coast or just a short distance from it. The sound of the waves and the smell of the salt air never leave you and you crave them when far away.

Life on the coast is different, often revolving around the turning of the tides and kindness of the weather. Livings are made from the sea. They say riding the waves and casting nets is in the blood, passed down from father to son.

A fresh crab sandwich is already making my mouth water. Leaning on the old rail around the harbour, watching small fishing boats unload the daily catch costs nothing, makes one thankful.

Walking a pebbled shore, the beach huts still boarded up before the season opens, Spring and Autumn often the loveliest times of year on the coast.

Home can mean an awful lot and one often appreciates it more as the years go by. It may have been a simple life and a silent place compared to now but, oh, how wonderful it was!

Do you have a special memory of your childhood home? Did you grow up along a coastline? Are you far from the ocean now.......and missing it?