NOSTALGIA

We moved in September
Dramatic climate change from south to north
A billowing wind whipped at our faces
And sometimes at our nerves
We faced the sea, brave newcomers

“It’ll do you good.” Fresh air they meant
As we rode our bikes against the “forsate gale,” my mum used to call it
My basket was pink with little plastic daisies on the front
I cried when the wind took it

One day I opened my curtains in the new house
To every seagull in North Shore
They’d made the flat roof their home, decorated with their putrid whitewash
Mouths orange, eyes alive
Stamping and flapping their hungry, sickening earthquake

When there was a beach we’d explore its brown sands
The stench repellent to native nose – with time, it went
A tram like a rare bird at that time of year, we wrote our names in the sand, waved

I ran between the crushed cans and Asda bags,
Blackened estuaries and occasional trolley to see them:
Hundreds of them, one every yard
Baby jellyfish awash.
I pretended to be fascinated,
Wanted to cry
The Golden Mile was grey

Cloud-caped mountains of the Lakes, visible from the prom on a clear day
Dad walked them all in 13 years
Now repeating them in his fifties

Clasping gloved hands tight, all the colours of the rainbow we walked
To the one small chippy at the end of the line that never had sauce
But always ice-creams in winter

Then we’d walk back again
Find sand blown right up to our front door

Four woollen jumpers and rosy cheeks for southern softies
Turned two yapping dogs and three locals ten years later,
One moved on