Grange at Sunset

When it's hot, like this, we go to the beach at sunset. On Friday we went to Grange.

The sun sets at 8.30pm. At 8.20 the sky at the horizon is a pale shade of lemon. The sun is sinking fast, a brilliant orange. A two-masted boat darkens off shore, heads bob and kiss in the shoulder-deep water.

Old men and women in swimsuits gossip at the water's edge. Towels are dragged back from the incoming tide. Everyone's waiting for sunset.

The sea is a black and primrose mosaic, the sky at the horizon the colour of toffee, a streak of orange pink cloud stretches itself thin.

The sun is three quarters below the horizon, the sky is tomato red. Fourteen seagulls fly north at a great height through deep blue air, and the first star shows.

A single light shines from one mast of the boat, a flag flaps from the other. Someone moves on the deck.

A man on the shore squats to photograph the boat against the sun's last rays

Voices mingle with the waves. Six seagulls fly north up the gulf. The tomato red sky turns first to marmalade, and then to no colour at all. People pack up their towels and children and empty drink bottles. Time to leave the black sea to itself.