Beach Buoy woke up at 5-48 am.
A sleep in!
It is round these parts.
Downstairs.
Kettle.
Toasted Teacake.
Thermal cups warmed for pre and post beach coffee.
Beach Buoy loaded the van with a dog (Stubborn in style.)
Two thermal cups full of hot coffee, a beach note book and a Beach Buoy.
Ok and a biscuit or two.
As he closed the van door, he glanced across in the direction of the beach.
The red lights that topped the Wind Turbines, glowed brightly.
As he set off, spots of rain began to fall.
They had the choice of any parking spot in the large dark car park.
It was 6-48 am.
Beach Buoy lit the fairy lights that stretched the full length of the van's dashboard.
He jumped into the back of the vehicle and lit the LED strip that ran along the van's units.
He had a choice of many colours.
He chose turquoise to start the day.
He looked out at the lights out at sea.
He counted the lights of eight ships on the horizon.
Lighthouses and Buoys punctuated the ships with their warning flashes from Hartlepool Headland, across the bay to the River Tees and beyond.
On land the Belisha beacons of a sea front zebra crossing flashed out of sync in a sort of Ta Dah pattern, one following the other in illuminating before fading.
He drank coffee and made notes in his Battered Beach Book.
7-27 am and the Gulls and beach were calling, light or no light.
Beach Buoy donned waterproof trousers under the gaze of the newly installed CCTV tower that kept watch on the car park now.
As usual Stubborn Dog was reluctant.
Beach Buoy carried his mate down to the water's edge.
The dog was loving life, play-acting his regular 'Ive just been shot routine.'
The spots of rain were no more.
They headed south.
Stubborn Dog walked .... eventually.
It was still fairly dark.
The tide was quite high.
The sea broke two or three steps out, it calmed beyond that.
There was a mild breeze from the south west.
The high tide meant that the beach area was quite narrow in places.
It was still plenty wide enough for the two metre rule.
Beach Buoy was more a fan of the two mile rule when it came to social distancing.
Gulls in the air were still just silhouettes of themselves due to the amount of or lack of light to be more precise.
They reached the stack.
They added seven stones today.
They stood at Stubborn Dog Stack for quite a while.
Sunrise time came without the sun participating.
They opted to head back to the van.
A bashful hidden Sun gilded the edges of some of the clouds that hung over the beach.
There was a fair amount of sea pottery around today.
Beach Buoy picked up a few examples.
He left them for others, after photographing them for blog purposes.
There was a wonderful selection of cloud stretched along the length of the bay.
Daylight brought people .
It was like someone had just shaken a fizzy bottleful of beach goers and dog walkers and aimed it at the sea front.
The sun glowed a little more as they reached the van.
Post Beach Coffee.
Note book.
People watch.
The low but bright winter sun cast long shadows.
People walked to the light like souls to paradise.
Today the beach was paradise.
BEACH BUOY.
