An entry of a sort, or One Goes Mad in Amberly(?)

Warning: reflective.

I was overcome by a sort of madness I suppose today, and I went to New Brighton on a Thursday and found it closed. Or mostly closed. Signs of life were few and far between, even on the bus on the way over. By the time my conveyance pulled up in a dingy, deserted side street at about 3:30, only myself and one other poor damned soul had failed to make their escape into one of the less easternmost, more interesting suburbs, before arrival at the end of the line. We thanked our driver, Charon, and he got out his long pole and pushed the bus off back across the Styx.

I went to the beach where Dan's phone told me I was in Waipara, or in Amberly, depending on your point of view (you'll find many of the small Canterbury towns we cling to depend strictly on our own point of view). I walked down the pier in the drizzle and observed stoic Japanese fishing enthusiasts setting their teeth against the wind and failing to apprehend any marine life whatsoever. I watched a man detach himself from his little girl and his dog and then attach himself to a huge flourescent orange kite and a small surfboard so he could speed down the beach jumping waves and generally look like he was doing the most fun thing in all the world. I watched a guy in bare feet pull up on his bicycle and spend 2 and a half hours applying a rake to sand in a way rake manufacturers never imagined to create a vast swirling sand picture mandela thingy you could only see from the height of the pier, just because he could. I went to the library and read 3 of 10 Terrifying 'True' Ghost Stories. I ordered pizza I needed and chips I didn't and sat on a wall and defended both from seagulls. And then I got to the business of walking, through the boarded-up and smashed facade of 'New' Brighton mall, down the extremely long straight of Pages Rd, a brief detour for the purpose of failing to locate my Grandad's grave, past the Retail Cathedral at Eastgate, and on to the Anglican Cathedral in the Square. (An hour and 35 minutes, in case anyone needs to know, but I didn't take the most direct route).

Mostly though, I sat and looked at the sea, and the sky, rolling out forever and to everywhere.