Teignmouth harbour on a summer afternoon in June (the first)
A Greater Black Backed Gull is crunching on crab.
A Starling is furtling frantically under the seaweed.
(Sparrows are busybodying in)
A crow jumps in to finish off the Gulls crab leftover.
Lunching in the Teign. Easy pickings and peckings.
Words & Vid: Ian Nisbet
We’ve been saturating ourselves in the multi-colourful world of JMW Turner this last week.
So time to go colour in this drizzly grey Saturday afternoon out there.
Haze is looking across towards Teignmouth from Shaldon beach.
She would have been seeing this
And she would have been seeing this
But there was hardly any time to get this scene set, or these boats sketched, before the drizzle arrived.
We had to retire to the shelter to eat our cheese sandwiches and drink our flask of tea.
The drizzle persisted and prolonged, becoming proper rain.
So we drive up to Labrador Bay. Here Haze can attempt another watercolour from the dry confines of the car (while listening to Woolf Works by Max Richter on the car stereo)
And this is the watercolour sketch she produced
JMW Turner approved, gave her the thumbs up!
Words & Photos: Ian Nisbet; Watercolour Sketch: Haze Brown
Over to Teignmouth early this Saturday morning (before the heavy rain was supposed to be sheeting in)
A very big blowy deckchair with the pier poking across from the left (and Haze contemplating jumping in for another ‘wild paddle’ – not!)
A methodical beachcomber scavenging the sands with his metal detector
In the picture below is far too much physical exercise going on. It’s 8 o’clock in the morning – stop it! They were getting body-ready for the Cornish Gig boat racing that appeared to be happening.
The harbour on the estuary side is a pretty messy, or a messy pretty, shamble of jumble.
This seagull came hurtling in looking for a loo. Or possibly a chip.
I can’t help but like Teignmouth. It’s a hotchpotch splotch of a place.
A short drive up (down?) to Teignmouth this afternoon.
Teignmouth Pier (150 years old) was an obvious candidate for some sepia nostalgia
The pier got badly damaged by the 2014 storm and had to be closed for 5 months while repairs were made to beams and decking.
Considering how ramshackle and flimsy it looks I’m surprised it didn’t go down.
Here’s something else that looked right for a rusty old paint of sepia: Grampy’s Boat circa 1950 possibly?
There was a communal thrum coming out the beach huts and harbour houses: locals messing with their old boats, sipping in the sun, chilling with beers and barbies.
A sense of simple easy life being openly, and pleasurably, accessible.
So we had to access some: a bowl of whelks, prawns, cockles and mussels; cake and coffee.
The Blue Hut will be returned to!
Words & Pics: Ian Nisbet
