Our bedroom is on the ground floor of our house – under the balcony – therefore ours is the closest room to the sea (hardly more than a skip, a jump and a hop, except that you’d have to skip down our steep garden, jump over the fence onto the railway lines and hop over the seawall!).

One of the wonderful things about living so close to the sea is that the view is ever changing; no sunrise is ever quite the same as another and every cloud and every wave is different. Sometimes I awaken and see a fishing boat chugging its way back to Cockwood Harbour, or there is a small boat by the buoys closer to shore – the fishermen are checking their nets and crab-pots; some mornings rowing boats are racing each other and quickly pass across our view, or perhaps a boat with a pretty white sail catches my eye before that boat, too, scuds off into another view to be seen from within someone else’s window frame. One day, years ago, I saw a lad in a kayak and I wanted to shout out, “Be careful of the sandbank and the rip by the river mouth”, but he was paddling too fast and was soon out of the frame…and out of earshot. Later that day he was in the frame, so to speak – there was a news report about a kayaker in trouble… I should have shouted…

My distance sight isn’t that great nowadays so when I rose from my bed and drew back the curtains a few days ago, and I looked out to sea and saw something looming on the horizon, I could hardly believe my eyes.

“It must be gigantic for me to be able to see it from this distance”, I thought.

But I couldn’t make out what it was – a trick of the light, surely, but no, there was something out there. What could be so huge? It appeared to be an oil rig though what an oil rig would be doing in Lyme Bay, Devon, I could not imagine. A short while later Chris took some photographs of the strange thing. Upon closer inspection Chris concluded that it was three enormous cranes on a barge, but they weren’t crossing the bay that day – they sat out in the bay for three days before disappearing. Strange! I guess that stranger things have happened at sea…

Chris was raring to go and dear old Mum, aged ninety-two, was getting carried away… You could say that she was nearly off her trolley. Well, maybe you had to be there.

It’s a long time since I walked out of the house in a bad mood – so long I can’t remember – but I was over-tired and fed-up. I needed to go out and get some air. I took a look behind me, to see if Chris had followed but he hadn’t so I turned off on the little path that leads down to the sea wall. In case you’re wondering I left Chris at home to watch his Formula One race in peace (I haven’t been following my hero Fernando Alonso recently).

It wasn’t exactly dark when I set out but night was falling quickly. I tested the night setting on my mobile camera and before long I realised it was quite dark, and there are no lights along the sea wall… except, of course, for the lights in the windows and the torches of the fishermen.

I wasn’t alarmed by Steve and Phil, the nice fishermen from Exeter. You can tell when people are normal, can’t you? They must have thought me a bit strange though – walking along the sea wall in the dark – but they didn’t show their surprise and chatted to me as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. They showed me photographs of the fish they caught the night before and even let me take photos of them. Looking at the photos now, I think they must be twins or at least brothers; I couldn’t really see them properly in the dark. Steve shone the torch to light the way for me as I headed towards the Rockstone Bridge (where I was going to leave the wall) but the light went off before I reached there – he understood that I could see alright and, more importantly, that I might feel like I was being surveyed. Nice chaps! I always get on well with fisher-folk – I enjoy a spot of fishing myself, especially in Australia, and more especially on a boat!

Funnily enough, I met another fisherman coming down to the bridge just as I was walking up from it.

“Another fisherman,” I said as we passed, “there are two others on the sea wall.”

“Have they caught anything?” he asked, pleased.

“Well, they caught a lot last night,” I answered.

“What did they catch?” he was thrilled (I must look like a woman who would know about fishing matters).

“Oh, a couple of rays, a couple of dogfish and some others – I think one was a flounder,” I said like a woman in the know.

He thanked me profusely and wished me an excellent evening before rushing on down to the wall. Nice fellow – fishermen tend to be good men.

Ten minutes later I walked through our door and Chris greeted me.

“I was worried,” he said, “I was looking for you everywhere – down at Coryton Cove and down the town.”

“Oh sorry, I went along the seawall past our house,” I said nonchalantly.

But inside I was pleased that Chris had cared enough to go looking for me. In truth, I had been in a bit of a mood.

Do you know what? I felt so much better for my little night-walk.

“Oh look at that goose!” I called out to Chris, “Hold on a second and I’ll get my camera out.”

Chris was very patient and didn’t mind stopping for me to take a few shots (I often have to stop and get out my camera when we are cycling). It was the end of the day and we were homeward bound on the cycle-path between Cockwood Harbour and Dawlish Warren. As you can see from the photographs, the goose wasn’t going to move from his spot on the fence where he was preening himself in the sunshine, not when we walked past with our bikes or even when I advanced with my mobile camera.

“That’s a funny looking goose – isn’t it?” I looked to Chris for confirmation (maybe he was a secret ornithologist or goose expert. Needless to say, I didn’t have my glasses on and Chris reckons his sight is good.)

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. (Not a goose expert then or he actually needs glasses.)

“Hasn’t it got rather a short neck for a goose?” I persisted.

“I’m not so sure,” Chris answered (he should have gone to “Specsavers”).

“Look at his feet,” I suggested, “and those pink fleshy bits on his face. Surely he’s a duck?”

“Geese have webbed feet too,” observed Chris (as if I didn’t know that – even though I’m no expert), “but you’re right, it does look like one of those speciality ducks from Dawlish Brook. Or is it a goose?”

Well, since then I’ve looked on the Internet and found a list of the Dawlish waterfowl along with photographs; the list begins with a swan (not it at all), a Barnacle Goose (ouch!), Call Duck, Carolina Duck, Chinese Goose, Crested Duck, Egyptian Goose, Lesser White-Fronted Goose, Mandarin Duck (ah so), Moorhen (don’t be ridiculous – I knew it wasn’t that!), Pintail, Shelduck, Muscovy Duck, Teal, Tufted Duck and Whistling Duck (phew!)… and our feathered friend wasn’t amongst them. Perhaps he was just a visitor passing through.

There’s another thing that’s been bothering me – why is it that whenever Chris and I cycle to Cockwood Harbour the tide is always out? Just being a silly goose!