The Channel
29th March - Various
programmes on Radio 4 this week marking the
Brexit “countdown”. The better, less controversial ones have been the 15
minute programmes about the English Channel / Manche: its effects on our literature,
culture, psyche. They started off on Monday, with Prof. Sanjeev Gupta talking
about the geological megaflood events
breaching the chalk ridge which spanned the Dover Strait until the later
Pleistocene (about 450ka BP onwards), dubbed Brexit 1.0, around the publication of the Nature Journal paper about findings beneath the Dover Strait. He
ends by wondering What If?
On Easter Saturday, 31st
March, I headed to the Channel coast at Lancing
and walked to Shoreham, sketching along the way.
That followed a wet, damp Good
Friday morning in Chichester, where I noted: Lavant flowing well. Dodged large
puddles on pavement, including near where Lavant re-emerges from culvert, at
foot of ramp up to footbridge over A259 dual carriageway. Then one big one in
the eastern corner of the multi-storey car park, blocking the exit at one end.
OK for 4x4s; saw one car go through, with very wet underside; we didn’t want to
risk it. Got out by turning round and doubling back.
Compare and contrast weather now
with that this time last year. Last year, high pressure, spring well underway;
though all a bit too far too fast, especially after a dry winter. This year, 8oC
in the south, feeling like 4oC in the wind; there were warnings of
snow on higher ground for Monday, but don’t know whether they still stand. The
ground is waterlogged everywhere; very noticeable from the train between Havant
and Lancing.
Flood count up overnight: EA had
15 flood warnings out this Saturday morning – mostly southwest England and east
Midlands, including the Nene and the Avon around Rugby (20 years ago, Easter
flooding, 2nd week of April. Particularly badly hit were the East
Midlands and along the Tewks Avon. Flood at Evesham topped 17ft, topped again
(18ft +?) July 2007.
Was I sure about Shoreham? Today
one of the better days of the Easter long weekend, forecast to be wet again on
Monday, mainly cloudy, grey and chilly 8C over the weekend. Forecast to be
better further east along the coast.
Knew for sure much more likely to
get mud free walk in through urban /
pavement walking along coast than anywhere off-road /off-pavement.
Morning cloudy and glum. Train
journey, sat on right, south side. Lighter, brighter sky towards coast. Chasing
the light.
Sketches – pencil / graphite.
Perhaps colour in back home, perhaps try out watercolor palette for Higham Hall
list. Need to do, and get used to watercolor, practice sketches / paintings in
watercolour, soft pastels, large brushes. Gairloch could be trial run. Other
than being cold, sounds quite nice up there at the moment, sunnier anyway. For
larger format / Plein air, need more settled weather, though not missing that
hard sunlight.
Got off at Lancing station and
walked to the beach area. Cuppa on picnic table at kiosk next to building with
gym etc. First of a series of quick sketches of sea and sky as I walked along
the shore to Shoreham. Sharp horizon broken by turbine poles of the Rampion
wind farm. My usual media for quick sketches: pencils, Inktense, Neocolor waxy
pastels for lights. Various sheets of
paper and small watercolour pad. Weather better than I’d expected: it
stayed dry through the day and enjoyed changing cloudscape on the horizon, sun
coming through the clouds, lighting a sliver of the horizon and the white
cliffs east of Brighton. Above the Brighton
shore, tower blocks and the i360 rod. Could see the pod going up and down,
slowly. Past beach huts, boats, the lagoon on my left, once an arm of Shoreham
Harbour. Boat on backshore silhouette against light. Rock armour.
At Shoreham Beach, turned inland
to cross the Adur Ferry Bridge. Lunch on seats near it. Still extensive, long
running tidal flood defence work being undertaken by the Environment Agency,
going on until at least next autumn. All along the Adur shore, closing off /
diverting most the paths along the between the Harbour mouth and A27. Wall on
south side of the Ferry Bridge now mainly complete, but still fences up along
the slipway and further along towards the houseboats. Not so easy now to get
onto the shore here like we did on one of Steve Carroll's sketchcrawls; no way
over the wall. When I got to the Ropetackle arts centre, path closed to the
north under the railway bridge. Tide in. Went back to Shoreham Beach and walked
along the beach to Shoreham Fort and the Harbour entrance, continuing my
Channel shore wanderings. Still brighter over the sea than inland. More
sketches at the Fort.
Back along beach, boardwalk half
way. Colder facing into the wind. Tide along Adur, beneath Ferry Bridge going
out fast. As I saw last autumn, several shattered glass panels in the bridge.
Presumably deliberate rather anything weather / accidental, if so sad. Did they
anticipate this when they built the bridge?
Cuppa in Toast on the Coast in
Shoreham High Street, before catching 15.46 train back.
Though a dry day where I went,
flood count up again this evening as Friday’s rain runs through the (river)
systems. At 9.00pm this evening: the Met.Office had a yellow warning out for
rain tomorrow for England and Wales, everywhere SW of a line from about the Dee
to Beachy Head for Sunday evening and much of Monday. On Monday, too, still a
snow warning in northern Britain (yellow again), mainly high ground. The EA’s
flood count in England was 17FWs around 7.00pm, but down to 12 two hours later.
Among the ones dropped later was the North Sea coast around Tynemouth and
Whiteley Bay; but there are two warnings on the Tewkesbury Avon and the Severn
at Tewkesbury and Maisemore-Sandhurst. The Avon at Evesham was 2.71m aCD at
8.00pm, peak expected at 2.8m. The 21st July 2007 peak was 5.52m
(18.11ft), the highest recorded here. The Severn has been rising fairly rapidly
since yesterday. At Haw Bridge, below Tewkesbury and the Avon’s outpourings,
there is an added tidal effect. Even more so at Maisemore. High spring tides after
a full moon. Levels could rise further on Sunday and Monday. 113 flood alerts
across large parts of mostly SW England and the Midlands and East Anglia; but
also the Thames above Teddington, the Esk above Whitby.
