Living on a beach

The Walrus and the Carpenter Were walking close at hand; They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand: "If this were only cleared away," They said, "it would be grand!"

I have never been able to confirm it, but there is a local story that Lewis Carroll was a regular visitor to Redcar, and stayed in a house on the terrace where I live. If true, it may have had an influence on the lines above! The trouble with sand is that it doesn't stay on the beach. It infiltrates every part of the house, blocking gutters and drains, scouring paintwork, tracking through on carpets and presenting a general nuisance. I don't possess a garage, having (gladly) sacrificed the rear of the premises to my wife's need for a garden, and so the sand plays havoc with the paintwork on my car. A lot depends on the wind direction, of course, but when the prevailing North-Easterlies blow we get such a build up that the council regularly close the road for a clean up exercise. Unfortunately this doesn't extend to my hallway. The wind itself of course is another nuisance. Being a terrace, there is a considerable build up of pressure between front and back when the wind blows - open the front door and the back door together and the whole of the house contents try to exit through one or the other. There is an internal porch which helps - we used to have a copper draughtproofing strip on the porch door, which acted just like the reed in a wind instrument and produced a noise very reminiscent of the alarm on a WWII U-boat when diving. We recently had new double glazing fitted to the upstairs front of the house, plastic of course, I would have preferred wood but it just doesn't make sense with what it has to put up with. The windows are fine in that they don't leak water at all; however, with certain wind directions they produce an amazingly loud whistling reminiscent of an orchestra tuning up, but without ever getting to the melodic bit. My wife has taken to sleeping with ear plugs in, I just put up with it. The sea itself causes us no problems. It may come as surprise to those who live in fear of sea levels rising due to global warming; but I've seen no evidence of it at all. The only time the sea has looked like encroaching on us was over 20 years ago. We had high tides and a NE gale, with the result that the sea was breaking over the road in front and reached to within a foot of my front door. This was on a New Year's Day morning - the afternoon tide was predicted to be higher and so we cured our hangovers by filling sandbags but the wind abated and we had no trouble. All in all, the disadvantages are far outweighed by the pleasures of our littoral location. Whatever the weather, the sea is a source of wonder and fascination to me, with its constantly changing moods. It influences me greatly, and adds a wonderful sense of dimension to everyday existence.