Saturday 23rd June 2001 – 8.29am
Low tide this morning, with the Channel mostly exposed and a few boats skelter in the subsided water. On the exposed banks lie chains and marker buoys and other flotsam, which gulls gather around, resting or feeding. Overhead a plover or some such bird is gliding high, calling out a shrill warning for all that can hear, as if something were wrong in the birdworld, and it is its newscaller.