Sadly, it’s not my new baby or my house – if only… As you may be aware, my niece Lizzie gave birth to a beautiful baby girl; Rosie made her debut appearance weighing six pounds and thirteen ounces at fourteen minutes past five last Sunday; like me, she’s a Sunday’s child – “lucky and happy, and good, and gay” (in the joyful sense!). They left hospital yesterday afternoon, not even twenty-four hours after the birth. I knew they would be tired but I rang anyway to see if I could go over “for just a peek”.

And if you, too, would like a peek, here are some of the photographs I took last night…

It is a full moon and the view from our terrace is beautiful. The sky is green.  I walk out to our balustrade and lean over, and watch some workmen on the sea wall; their orange overalls are as bright as traffic lights. I go and get my big camera – no time for setting up a tripod so I lean against the balustrade, take a long exposure and hope for the best. Back against the French door I take another shot of the moon and the terrace – I try to keep still but the seconds tick by and my breathing shakes the camera. Nevertheless, I think the shots are quite compelling, especially the workmen with their lights…

There was great excitement along the coast at Dawlish a little earlier this afternoon, especially amongst the people who live in the houses near the sea wall (including Chris and me). In fact, I was with my friend and neighbour, Catherine, when we saw it; we were having a chat and a nice cup of tea on her veranda at the time. Suddenly a big pontoon, a tug boat and two other boats appeared in our line of vision (we were looking at the sea, as you tend do when you are on the verandas in this vicinity) and our conversation ended. Catherine grabbed her camera and I dashed home to get my mine. Pretty soon most of our neighbours were outside on their terraces or walking down to the railway line. It was a joyous and momentous event – the pontoon carries the crane and equipment necessary for the completion of the repair work to our sea wall. Hooray!

From early in the morning the people had begun to arrive for the big event; they arrived by car, bike, scooter and shank’s pony. By nine-thirty the town was heaving. They came to the beaches, the sea wall (well, the parts that were open), the hillsides and every house that has a sea view, which includes ours. Family and friends steadily filled San Remo Terrace – we nearly all had parties – and strangers with picnics filled the areas of grass below us; one family even occupied our old table and benches by the barbecue on the terrace common ground.

Sadly, one person who would have loved to see the air show couldn’t be with us; our friend Roland was high up in the air himself… well on his way to Brisbane.