THIS TIME NEXT WEEK....

(With apologies to Sir John Betjeman)

I know so well this turfy mile.

These clumps of sea-pink withered brown.

The breezy cliff, the awkward style.

The sandy path that takes me down

To crackling layers of broken slate

Where black and flat sea-woodlice crawl

And isolated rock pools wait

Wash from the highest tides of all.

I know the roughly blasted track

That skirts a small and smelly bay

And over squelching bladderwrack

Leads to the beach at Greenaway.