As I Strode Out One August Morning.

On maps of the area, there is very little distance between Pagham Spit and Selsey:

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Except for that awkward gap between the spit and the Church Norton sand bar.
Unless you take a boat it means a long walk right around Pagham Harbour.

So, off I go.

7 a.m. is a good time to start a walk as everywhere seems deserted (except for the joggers and dog walkers) and anyone you do meet gives a cheery 'hello' or 'good morning'. I think the cut-off point for acknowledging fellow humans is around 9 a.m.

The stroll along the prom toward Aldwick is pleasant and gives me the opportunity to walk through Marine Gardens and admire my favourite shelter:

and the human sundial:

Which I can't use because of the lack of sunshine.

From the gardens to Pagham Spit is an energy sapping trudge along the shingle beach where I spot some feral shoes:

Feral shoes have been a bit thin on the ground this season but this is obviously a newly escaped and possibly breeding pair.

Just down the beach from the shoes there laid the body of a man surrounded by empty beer cans.
I have spared him his dignity by not photographing him. I do hope he wasn't dead.

I walk along the beach past the ferocious warning signs that tell me to keep out of the private enclaves of The Craigwell and Aldwick Bay.
Robert Smith (out of The Cure) lives on Alwick Bay but I didn't see any sign of him. Perhaps he's a late riser.
It takes me 2 hours to stumble to the shanty-town area of Pagham.

I like this area though it's full of holiday homes and people engaged in tearing down the shanties and building the dream homes that will eventually get washed into the sea.

Now begins the long walk around Pagham habour.
I stop at the north wall.  At first I was attracted by the swans gliding back and forth, then I notice a sort of 'boiling' nearby that must have been, judging by all the fins breaking the surface, a school of fish.
I spotted a twitcher and began to worry that I may be disturbing whatever he had his sights trained on.

I moved on.

All the benches dotted around the harbour seem to be dedicated to dead twitchers which didn't put me off having a sit-down-stare-into-space.  Something I find myself doing with alarming regularity of late.
The tide-line around the harbour is filled with the ghosts of tiny crabs:

I wanted to take this dead crab home but as soon as I tried to put in my pocket it turned to dust and blew away.

Although I'd taken plenty of water with me I'd drunk it all by the time I was on the outskirts of East Beach and found very difficult not to take advantage of this opportunity to refresh myself:

It was outside my 'dream home':

I finished my walk in the Lifeboat pub (miserable barmaid). It had taken me just over 4 hours to reach Selsey and half way down a pint of Timothy Taylor's bitter I made the decision to get the bus home.