There was a time when I thought the sea was always angry. We would visit my Gran in Old Portsmouth where some of the roads around her flat were still cobbled. In fact her single paned windows looked out over the Grand Parade. On our weekends normally we’d look down on a few rows of cars as people found a spot and decanted onto the coast, hot toddlers and dogs in tow. My Gran used to say that the old cobbled parade ground was filled with American and British troops just before D-Day. She would have looked down on the young faces as they looked out to sea. Round the corner was the Round Tower which has guarded the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour for six hundred years. Smashing up against it was this beach of pebbles and to get to the beach you had to walk through the old walls of the harbour. Fortified and steadfast they seemed rooted into the very depths of the earth. I’d always hear the sea before I caught sight of it, that was the way. The volume always seemed higher there, in amongst the stone walls and towers with their pebbly foundations. The salty spittle of the channel would be another signal you were getting close. We would tiptoe to view the waves and judge their mood, expectant and wondering. On those angry days we’d step into the wind and listen to our tiny voices being swept into the wash. Holding tight to each other or the railings we counted the rollers and tried not to get too wet. The walls buttressed the pulse of the waves and I would be swallowed up by the billowing sound. It was always a thrill. Somedays the temper had abated and the skies clearer and we’d jump down onto the pebbles ready to skim some stones.
Read this & burst forth with, ‘I must go down to the seas again’: “Cobbled stones and the fickle #sea http://t.co/oEjg0pFj27 by @tombarrett”
Tom’s reading Cobbled stones and the fickle sea – The Curious Creative: Cobbled stones and the fickle sea – Th… http://t.co/1m4WevxPDs
via @tombarrett Cobbled stones and the fickle sea http://t.co/H6VRWaJu7R
RT @tombarrett: Cobbled stones and the fickle sea – The Curious Creative http://t.co/K8Xnw5KYB3 http://t.co/YnQPo58a8I
@hotdogsladies I made the clackity noise and this is what I found http://t.co/PqpLjN9ZeN thanks for helping me tear of my labels
Lovely writing by m’colleague and friend @tombarrett, even the more so because it’s “just because”: http://t.co/D4DXCmOmx5
Cobbled stones and the fickle sea http://t.co/PXQb8ymijO
Cobbled stones and the fickle sea http://t.co/BshMtmNjpX #EdChat
Cobbled stones and the fickle sea http://t.co/9topEegAww #cpchat #eduleaders #leadership #edleadership
New post: Cobbled stones and the fickle sea http://t.co/dDwJi2o4WO