Tide & Change

Last year the Samphire grew thickly on the marsh beside the Egg, but this year there is none at all in prospect here. The mud bank has lost height and has been covered in a thick layer of green algae … Continue reading →

The crab sat unmoving for over an hour in the shade of a three inch high mud cliff, stirring only when the sun rose sufficiently to pierce his shadowy retreat.

The decayed wooden hulk of the supply boat @ 50º47’54.53″ N & 1º24’33.35″ W, dates from the later days of the second world war and it is slowly returning to the (soggy) earth from which its timbers originally sprang. Every … Continue reading →

Land argues with the risen tide all about its borders. Delicate sea pink threatened by the advances of grey brine on a cold May day.

The river gathers and weaves together all manner of flotsam into organic carpets formed by rippling waves meeting shore, where today they were dried by the sun. They are an indicator of season, height of tide, local growth and animal life. The … Continue reading →

An examination of the two dead mice found last summer revealed different processes of decomposition; one of dry mummification and the second of slimy rot. I will remove the slime on the latter and bring into light its skeletal structure.

The well eroded branch of a riverine oak beside the river at Exbury is a swirling eddying ocean of currents which echo the wider pattern of the world’s oceans imaged from data captured by NASA satellites circling the earth between … Continue reading →

The northern edges of the sinewy outer bank I call Snake Island, were rich in strands of unravelled polyester rope of many bright colours, twisted around the branches of tamarisk bushes and out across the river bed; little reminders of … Continue reading →

The moon became full at midnight last night as the Environment Agency issued 24 severe flood warnings across the country. A high tide of 3.5m was predicted for 22.30 (it stays high for about three hours here). However, river levels … Continue reading →

Yet another storm from the south west appeared to be gathering from around eight this morning, but the Egg rides the waves well in its sheltered bay. High spring tides can almost clear the protecting embankment however (as can be … Continue reading →

The upper limit of the tide was defined by a rippling line of thin clear ice, where the saline water, fingering the same flat marshy river bank for three hours of slack water, froze at its extremities. A weak morning sun … Continue reading →

On January 23rd, I glimpsed Orion in the southern sky above the Isle of Wight, maybe hunting with an owl who was calling from somewhere close by. Since then however, he has mostly been hidden from sight above a succession … Continue reading →

Whilst living alone for just over two years in a woodland cabin beside Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts in the 1840s, HD Thoreau always had three chairs ready for visiting friends. Callers to the Egg can’t be encouraged quite so much, … Continue reading →

The sovereignty of the stormy weather released its grip yesterday for a few hours of sunshine when I was free to inspect my watery bounds after a winter lashing which began on December 23rd. Winds and spring tides have returned … Continue reading →

High water is due to top the predicted 3.9m tonight, due to the continuing southwesterly gales and the Environment Agency has issued a flood alert and indicative map. The inundation would be directly across the river as well as east … Continue reading →

During the build up to the invasion of Normandy in 1944, Nevil Shute spent a lot of time on and around the Beaulieu River at Exbury and the opening chapters of his book ‘Requiem for a Wren’ are based on … Continue reading →

Late on Sunday night the river surged in on a high spring tide made more potent by low pressure, heavy rain and strong southwesterly winds. Adjoining land was reduced to a mere two food wide strip around the small oak … Continue reading →

Wind and the high spring tides around tonight’s full moon, combined to push the Egg toward the shore and my floating dock up and over a shrinking riverbank. The lower part of the door now catches on a stanchion and … Continue reading →