Transfiguration

I'm at Hove on Sunday afternoon. I'm wearing another jacket. I don't like this one either.

It's brown corduroy, with faux fur trim around the hood. And it's too short.

I'm going for a walk with my mum and Nostradamus. We walk to the Brighton jetty. Let's go on the jetty, says my mum.

It's windy on the jetty. The aeolian harp feature is mysteriously silent. One of the coloured sails is torn to shreds, flapping. The red and white one. It's sunny. The sun is low and slanting, and the sea is like heaving phlegm.

We only get half way. My mum thinks it's too windy after all. And the seat she meant to sit on is too dirty.

We're walking back now, towards the esplanade. She is saying something about the aeolian harp, and the sails. I'm transfixed by the sea, on the northern side of the jetty where it's now backlit by the sun. No longer monochrome, it heaves in patches of animal colour, green black and brown, like a stew of spiders' legs; the waves, semi translucent, greygold, topped with foam, outraced by their tumbling shadows.

Well, maybe not transfixed, but it does take my mind off my wardrobe.