Monday 18th February

I was at Walton all day on Friday and Saturday, and for a change got a remarkable amount of writing done.  So much so that I was in fact a bit of a hermit, and apart from a run-out for milk and bread hardly saw anything of the town.  One of the reasons for buying the house was that I love the sea, and just have to go and walk on the sand, or at least look at it whenever I am here.  Usually Julia and the dogs are here, so I spend at least half an hour with them on the beach, but she has gone to France already, so I was on my own.  I had my writing class on Sunday afternoon, and was planning to leave after watching the Andrew Marr show.  It only takes five minutes to get to the station, so I took a small diversion to gaze at my friend the sea.  And the morning was so sunny and frosty, and fresh and clear and bright I was quite looking forward to it.

The tide was almost out and there were vast stretches of wet shiny sand, with the ripples of the departing waves making tiny ridges in beautiful repeating patterns.  I decided to send Julia a photo, so took out my brand new Blackberry Z10, and located the camera icon and pointed it along the coast, out towards the Naze itself, where the land rises up and the houses peter out. I took a couple of shots then turned to face the pier.  I was amazed, in the time it had taken to click two quick snaps a sea fog had drifted in and was now obscuring the lifeboat end of the pier.  And it was advancing rapidly inland, so much so that I had no time to snap the pier before it was completely enveloped in a roiling tumbling blanket of whiteness.  I looked back and though it must have been less than a minute the mist had engulfed that view too.

As I walked up the hill towards the station I too was engulfed in the whiteness, and suddenly it was cold and clammy, and I couldn’t see more than a foot or two in front of me.  The train loomed in out of the blanket of fog and it didn’t clear for a few miles inland.

And it had come from nowhere, out of a clear blue sky.  One minute sunshine and then engulfed in mist.