Winter beach maintenance at Hythe

P had an appointment in Hythe, so J and I went with him for a walk along the seafront. Hythe Bay is a wonderful place for sunsets on winter afternoons, but this afternoon the beach was noisy with a large digger and several dumper trucks, which were repeatedly loaded with shingle and driven away to be deposited elsewhere. I think this is fairly routine along this coast in winter, as the autumn storms drive shingle up the beach to pile against the sea wall and, in places, heap up on the promenade. J enjoyed watching this for a while, and we both enjoyed the view of the Channel with the soft smudge of the French coast on the horizon and the soft, gradient transition of the sky through pinks, mauves and greys to clear, periwinkle blue. In the extra, the ridged curves in the shingle mark the turning circle of the trucks. Looking west, the outline of the decommissioned nuclear power station at Dungeness was closer and clearer, with the flash of the nearby lighthouse visible every ten seconds as the sky darkened.