Pink Flower

On the walk back, clouds filled the sky and the sea turned the colour of molten metal. Or so I imagined. Because all at once the sea looked like a brilliant photograph. A line of white on the horizon, silver gelatin sea, frothy tea shallows and dried apple sand.

But that was not what prompted me to take a photo. Well, yes it was. But that was not what prompted me to take two more.

What prompted that was the last of my coastal flowers. A little girl in a fluorescent pink net skirt. You could tell she loved that skirt. She was jumping in the shallows with her sister, making the skirt bounce up and down. It was something like a tutu. And over it she wore an oversized white top.

You know how these days you aren't supposed to photograph other people's children without permission? Luckily there is a distance beyond which that rule does not apply. The little girl was way down on the beach in the middle distance with her sister, and I was up on the esplanade with my mum.

So I snapped her twice. Once when she was leaning forward calling to the sister, and once when both of them began to run.

In both shots the pink skirt is a tiny bright pink spot in the silvery landscape.