A few months back Mrs O and I trundled up to our local beach resort of choice – Southwold. Now, apart from knitting and stuff Mrs O likes nothing better than books so she looks forward to ‘Ways with Words’. It usually coincides with Remembrance Sunday and weather permitting (it did not in 2015) I prefer to hoof it along the beach north of the pier, assuming the beach sand is at a level that lets me get safely off the flood defence wall that ends at the start of Easton Bavents.

I have sat through some interesting talks at Southwold but if the truth be told, my cheeks go a tad numb so I’d rather be out there with my cheeks (facial) glowing from the exercise of trudging through sand, if not numb at times due to the cold.

I’m always hopeful on these jaunts of finding a fossil from these collapsing cliffs. I’ve not found one yet but the child in me still gets excited at a possible find or discovery. I nearly always discover something because I am constantly looking at what is seemingly the same scene as I looked at at each previous visit but every time I see something differently because it is different.

The Environment Agency has in its wisdom decided not to do a Cnut along this bit of East Anglian coastline. It is pretty obvious that there are no major conurbations in the way full of likely disgruntled electorate to sway any party vote so it has been left to the ravages of mother nature whilst HS2 is ploughed with money to cleave through a diminishing green belt to convey management consultants to their HM Government clients that 30 minutes sooner – I digress but you get the message. This part of the country is cheap unless you are one of the landed gentry.

Apparently the chap that owned or owns the homestead just to the north of the pier had allowed tipping to take place on his land as a form of sea defence. He is no longer allowed to do that so as each successive spring tide washes in ashore along with heavier than average rainfall in shorter periods of time, the cliffs regularly yield debris of our making that meets the Pliocene layer that marks the current beach level. I don’t know how much the melting ice caps will yield in terms of new high water marks and whether we will end up washing out detritus into the new ‘Plastic-ene’ layer or not but the colours revealed by this constant erosion is to be marvelled at.

When I saw this wash-down it made me think of a Flintstones car scrap heap.Hey, but they were Stone Age (whenever that was)

More images from this exploration can be seen at  Southwold November 2016