What a mess!

A few days ago, when we got home, we took a walk along our poor old sea front!

The extensive storm damage to the sea wall over the last two years is now being repaired (and of course, during the inevitable arguments over who was going to pay for it, the damage got worse and the cost increased!).

The story going around at the moment is that one load of mixed concrete didn’t arrive until 5 pm and, of course, didn’t get laid until after that – and therefore the high tide overnight had a jolly old time washing it all away!

Looking in the opposite direction to the sea wall repairs it’s another depressing sight: the last storm to batter Selsey has finished the job of transferring all the shingle from the beach onto the sea wall – submerging it to such a depth that it’s impossible to see any of it in places.

So, what was once a pleasant place for a walk is now a bit more of an effort.

Further along, although we can see the sea wall in places again, the damage to the beach is extensive (now showing all the underlying rocks) and the boats have been tossed hither and thither - some having been damaged beyond repair.

A lot of the winch engines have been stripped of their housings and their foundations undermined and more boats have been flung about.  We saw one fisherman putting a new covering around his winch engine to protect it but we expect, after the council shift the thousands of tons of shingle back to where it should be and the fishermen sort their boats out, it’ll all look “ship shape and Bristol fashion” as if nothing had happened - and we still appreciate that this is a great place to spend some of our time and that the damage to our sea front is nothing compared to what other communities have suffered.