Red seaweed in the postman's home town.

  The night before we'd driven along the coast road. I could hear the waves but couldn't see a thing, all the same I felt like we were near the edge of something. When we arrived at his house there was short run through the rain from our van, a blue postal service issue. Entering through the cellar we took off our shoes and left them damp amongst the wellies, waterproofs and toys left by the grandkids. In the middle of the basement floor lay a the local newspaper, spread out like a blanket, it cradled about 20 purple potatoes, raw and precious like something usually kept form the light.After dinner, lamb I remember, the old postman wondered off. I thought he'd gone to the living room but after calling his name and then seeing a light on in a small farm building from the kitchen window, his wife said he'd gone to feed the animals. The storm raged, and the rain battered the house on all sides. Though as the night wore on the sky became more clear. I headed out of the house, over a brook and up to the out building were the old man kept some sheep. Inside 5 or so rams shuddered. I was new here. A sink had been plumbed into the front part of the building and a plastic bucket that once held feed was now filled with rams horns sat like mussels waiting to be washed. 'They're used for ornaments' he said before I could ask.I stepped out into the night sky and looked up at her great body. It was hard to hold a steady viewing position with the wind blowing so hard. I could hear the waves hitting the beach and I knew they were close. That night, fast asleep, I'd walked into the bathroom at the postmans home. I remembered for a split second in the morning between reaching for the toast how I'd stood looking out of a rectangular window in the dark and imagining I was watching a scene playout from backhome, when in fact I was staring into the dark of the sea.....In the morning I could see where we were. It didn't look so threatening. The storm had blown itself out and I pulled on my waterproof. As I left a young girl from the village arrived at the door. She'd come to have her hair cut by the old postman's wife and I was shown the salon he'd built for her that linked to the basement near the wellies, the toys and the spuds.I'd drank a lot of coffee and this heightened the moment I stepped out and felt the sea air on my face. I walked some 200 yards to the beach and was a little worried about standing on its black and beige mixed sand, it still looked charged from the previous night. A tree trunk had been washed up, for some reason part of it had been burnt. It started to rain again. I craned my neck backwards towards land, I wanted to get off the beach and so joined the road out the village. After ten minutes I walked out along a headland, an old lady watched me from the first floor window of her yellow corrugated iron clad house, but when I looked back she'd turned away. Although it was mid morning she sat by her window with the tabel light on. It was winter, but maybe she always did this.Passing a boatshed I arrived at the small harbour, built to shelter the local fishing boats. The sea was dead calm, the kind which looks as though it is capable of unimaginable strength, in fact more like a kind of torque. The habour was empty of boats and along it's concrete walls lay bunches of red seaweed thrown from the sea during the storm. All around it lay like an offering, a gift from the sea. At first I thought of flowers thrown but it wasn't like this, it was more like pollen that had missed its target.I sat there for a bit, took a photograph. I was told not to go down there when the weather was bad, the waves run right over taking whatever they want back into the sea. It was time to go to the next village. I walked back along the headland to the house and the grey waves rolled past, and the black beach waited to be hit. The house came into view. The postman's dog sat under a street light in a light rain shower looking out to sea, a light went off in a home and the girl with her new hair drove across the valley to her young children.