Wednesday, March 01, 2006

A shoreline walk at sunset

click photo to enlarge
"As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset, I am in Paradise." Ray Davies, English songwriter & singer

The sunset is one of our world's most beautiful sights. And a very democratic sight it is too. No matter where you live, be it the most beautiful sylvan setting or the most god-forsaken urban waste land, you can share its magnificence. For every now and again the sun will descend like a great orange ball, coating the clouds and the sky in colours and tints that make us stop, and stand, and stare.

But there is one privileged group who see sunsets better than the rest of us, and they are the people who live by a west facing coast. Here the glory of the end of the day is multiplied by the reflections off the water. I live near such a coast, and I've often chosen to be by the shore when I've seen a good sunset in prospect. I've never regretted it. It almost seems that each sunset you see has the same effect on you as the very first you ever saw!

My photograph shows a couple walking along the shoreline during a sunset at Fleetwood, Lancashire. Arm in arm, they make a romantic sight, and the pink, mauve and gold colours of the sunset heighten the effect to such an extent that not even the weed and net bedraggled supports of the rusting pier can detract from it!
photograph & text (c) T. Boughen