Winterton

It is a sinking into sand; marram grass too sharp to lie on; eyes stinging in the wind, and a nerve in the cheek jumping like an actor playing Dostoevsky. A few memories remain: the seal pup dragging its wound up the beach showing a ripped belly and crying for help; terns dive-bombing the air above their nests; the flotsam fox bitten and chewed scourged and scraped but still recognisable and always the grey North Sea disappearing into a grey sky. Beachcombing between the season's limbs to discover loneliness or coming off the frost-crisp dunes rejoicing in ownership. Sixty-eight years should burst the walls of a skull with this; but mostly it drifts like fine sand, or bangs against the groynes whenever the wind blows towards the land.