It’s been a busy couple of days. New Year’s Eve saw me working until the bells chimed trying to finish off a short story submission. I managed to get it in time which felt like as big an achievement as the story itself as this was created in about 48 hours.
As a result the alcohol I’d got in to welcome the New Year waited until everything was submitted. Given that the bottle of champagne I bought to celebrate completing the novel is still sitting in the fridge and getting this story done in the timeframe was a challenge I thought “what the heck” and started drinking at around 12:30am.
This in itself wouldn’t be too bad if I’d not arranged to go with family down to Hayling Island and so I was woken about 8am, slightly hungover and possibly still a little drunk by my mother saying her and my father were on their way to pick me up.

Hayling Island is a small landmass near Portsmouth connected to the main land via a single bridge and a long beach facing the Channel at its southern edge. My family has been going there for years and it seems to be a family tradition to all go to the coast on New Year’s Day.

It was quite a tumultuous day, which really matched how I was feeling. However, the sea spray and gusty winds soon cleared my fuzzy head. The beach was a lot busier than my photos let on (because people spoil a nice shot). There were a lot of people walking (with and without dogs), a number of kitesurfers, and apparently a mile down the beach a dead body.

We found interesting shells for my mother’s craft projects, scrambled up banks and drew patterns in the sand. We all returned just in time for the heavens to open. And so there we ended the day’s outing, packed in tight with cups of tea and sausage rolls, watching the continuing influx of people who’d also had the stupid idea to go to the beach on New Year’s Day.