Pier Pool and Rainbow
I’d been banging on about the place for nearly five years by now. “Let’s go to Clevedon,” I’d throw into the mix whenever the prospect of a Somerset jolly appeared on the agenda. “It’s got a beautiful pier and the lido is great too. Definitely worth a stop if we’re in the area.”
For a while, the Somerset trip seemed forever destined to be an unrealised adventure. While Dave and Lee had rather more flexible working arrangements, my endless calendar of reporting deadlines left only a few windows of opportunity that didn’t get snapped up sleepy by fortnights in the sun. And then the pandemic came along and messed up everybody’s plans for a couple of years. But after four years of talking and a couple of pit stops at nearby Burnham on Sea on the way home from adventures in Glencoe and Snowdonia respectively, it seemed that the rather more modest foray a couple of counties to the east was finally in the diary. Lee had booked some reasonably priced accommodation, we’d all been given clearance for the mission to proceed by our better halves, and a three night escapade was confirmed for February. Right in the middle of storm season again as it turned out.
And so, on the morning of the first full day of middle aged togs’ playtime we set the compass for the brief drive up the motorway to Clevedon, a town reminiscent of some of Bristol’s more pleasing areas with a coastline to add to the appeal. I’d been here three or four times before, always armed with the camera of course. After all I’d seen pictures of that beautiful Victorian pier long before I’d ever set foot in town. And in every one of those visits, a strangely calm aura has swept over me as I’ve gazed along the waterfront for the first time. It’s one of those towns where I immediately sense a feeling of happy ease whenever I arrive. The previous stop was just a few months earlier when we’d parked the van here rather than at Taunton Deane Services for our lunch break on the way home from a few nights in the Brecon Beacons. Ali and I had sat for hours by the lido enjoying the October sunshine, taking in the distant view across the Bristol Channel of the Sugar Loaf Mountain near Abergavenny, where we’d just arrived here from. Silently, with our bare feet dipped into the cold water we sat at the edge, eavesdropping the conversations of the nearby swimmers as they talked about life, work and how their regular constitutional here made them happy. It seemed that some people came on the local train from Bristol to get the swimming fix that made so many of them glow with contentment. I was pretty ecstatic myself at the time. I’d retired a few days before we’d left for Wales and still hadn’t quite grasped the notion that for the very first time, I wouldn’t be getting up in the morning and heading into the office. Not tomorrow; not ever. It took months to get used to that sensation. And that’s how Clevedon makes me feel whenever I stop there. Silently glowing. Our brief lunch stop spread itself carelessly across the afternoon and darkness was falling by the time we headed back to the van for the rest of the journey back to Cornwall. Well, you knew I was going to stop for sunset didn’t you? It was a very nice one too – I really should edit those photos, shouldn’t I?
And now I was back, among slightly more dishevelled and dissolute company, each of us wandering off in separate directions to make our own compositions on a brisk and shower filled Wednesday in February. Even in the depths of winter the swimmers were making good use of the lido, albeit mostly in thick wetsuits. Away beyond these calm waters, the earthy brown currents of the Bristol Channel surged darkly and frothily along the divide between here and South Wales, reminding us that Storm Eunice was due to arrive within the next day or two. Yet despite the combining of the elements and the promise they held for the coming days, Clevedon’s waterfront still retained that peaceable mood; a mood that was soon added to by the flawless rainbow that appeared and hung over the pier for upwards of half an hour, offering plenty of opportunity to compose, recompose and then return to version one. I’ve never seen a rainbow stay in the sky for such a length of time. I was even able to take a walk along the front to a place just above the pier and shoot it from there too. Not often you’re spoilt for choice with your rainbow shots. I could even have given you the double rainbow on a very wide angle. I eventually chose to share this one with you, a five second exposure taken across the lido where the water was moving just enough to offer some texture. Not often a rainbow appears exactly where you’d want it to either. Usually they’re right behind us, opposite the light source and hovering over a sewage works or the local landfill site.
So if you’re ever beetling along the M5, just around Bristol and considering the soul sapping experience that is otherwise known as stopping at a motorway service station, you might just want to make an exit at junction 20 and head for the waterfront instead. True, your journey may end up taking several hours longer than you’d intended, especially if you’ve brought your camera along for the ride, but you might just feel better for the experience. I always do. Especially when somebody plants a rainbow on top of the pier.
Pier Pool and Rainbow
I’d been banging on about the place for nearly five years by now. “Let’s go to Clevedon,” I’d throw into the mix whenever the prospect of a Somerset jolly appeared on the agenda. “It’s got a beautiful pier and the lido is great too. Definitely worth a stop if we’re in the area.”
For a while, the Somerset trip seemed forever destined to be an unrealised adventure. While Dave and Lee had rather more flexible working arrangements, my endless calendar of reporting deadlines left only a few windows of opportunity that didn’t get snapped up sleepy by fortnights in the sun. And then the pandemic came along and messed up everybody’s plans for a couple of years. But after four years of talking and a couple of pit stops at nearby Burnham on Sea on the way home from adventures in Glencoe and Snowdonia respectively, it seemed that the rather more modest foray a couple of counties to the east was finally in the diary. Lee had booked some reasonably priced accommodation, we’d all been given clearance for the mission to proceed by our better halves, and a three night escapade was confirmed for February. Right in the middle of storm season again as it turned out.
And so, on the morning of the first full day of middle aged togs’ playtime we set the compass for the brief drive up the motorway to Clevedon, a town reminiscent of some of Bristol’s more pleasing areas with a coastline to add to the appeal. I’d been here three or four times before, always armed with the camera of course. After all I’d seen pictures of that beautiful Victorian pier long before I’d ever set foot in town. And in every one of those visits, a strangely calm aura has swept over me as I’ve gazed along the waterfront for the first time. It’s one of those towns where I immediately sense a feeling of happy ease whenever I arrive. The previous stop was just a few months earlier when we’d parked the van here rather than at Taunton Deane Services for our lunch break on the way home from a few nights in the Brecon Beacons. Ali and I had sat for hours by the lido enjoying the October sunshine, taking in the distant view across the Bristol Channel of the Sugar Loaf Mountain near Abergavenny, where we’d just arrived here from. Silently, with our bare feet dipped into the cold water we sat at the edge, eavesdropping the conversations of the nearby swimmers as they talked about life, work and how their regular constitutional here made them happy. It seemed that some people came on the local train from Bristol to get the swimming fix that made so many of them glow with contentment. I was pretty ecstatic myself at the time. I’d retired a few days before we’d left for Wales and still hadn’t quite grasped the notion that for the very first time, I wouldn’t be getting up in the morning and heading into the office. Not tomorrow; not ever. It took months to get used to that sensation. And that’s how Clevedon makes me feel whenever I stop there. Silently glowing. Our brief lunch stop spread itself carelessly across the afternoon and darkness was falling by the time we headed back to the van for the rest of the journey back to Cornwall. Well, you knew I was going to stop for sunset didn’t you? It was a very nice one too – I really should edit those photos, shouldn’t I?
And now I was back, among slightly more dishevelled and dissolute company, each of us wandering off in separate directions to make our own compositions on a brisk and shower filled Wednesday in February. Even in the depths of winter the swimmers were making good use of the lido, albeit mostly in thick wetsuits. Away beyond these calm waters, the earthy brown currents of the Bristol Channel surged darkly and frothily along the divide between here and South Wales, reminding us that Storm Eunice was due to arrive within the next day or two. Yet despite the combining of the elements and the promise they held for the coming days, Clevedon’s waterfront still retained that peaceable mood; a mood that was soon added to by the flawless rainbow that appeared and hung over the pier for upwards of half an hour, offering plenty of opportunity to compose, recompose and then return to version one. I’ve never seen a rainbow stay in the sky for such a length of time. I was even able to take a walk along the front to a place just above the pier and shoot it from there too. Not often you’re spoilt for choice with your rainbow shots. I could even have given you the double rainbow on a very wide angle. I eventually chose to share this one with you, a five second exposure taken across the lido where the water was moving just enough to offer some texture. Not often a rainbow appears exactly where you’d want it to either. Usually they’re right behind us, opposite the light source and hovering over a sewage works or the local landfill site.
So if you’re ever beetling along the M5, just around Bristol and considering the soul sapping experience that is otherwise known as stopping at a motorway service station, you might just want to make an exit at junction 20 and head for the waterfront instead. True, your journey may end up taking several hours longer than you’d intended, especially if you’ve brought your camera along for the ride, but you might just feel better for the experience. I always do. Especially when somebody plants a rainbow on top of the pier.