A Wander in Wittering

My birthday was last Sunday: there were of course things to do, but I had a yearning for the sea and had enough time to do what many people from Swanvale Halt do and zoomed down to West Wittering on Chichester Harbour and, as we always used to say in our family, 'look at the water'. It was a chilly and windy afternoon, but the low autumnal sun struck across the beach and sand bars, illuminating the walkers, dog-walkers, and wind-surfers who were there in what I thought were surprising numbers on a November Sunday afternoon. A mermaid's purse was waiting to be discovered. The wind whipped the drier sand across the damper in long streams, and it found its way even as far as the table behind the dunes where I sat with my tea and an ice cream. But it was worth the sand, the drive, and even the charge for the car park, to mark the day as something different.