My desert island discs - Number 8

This week I've been obsessed with keeping cool and I'm spending more time by the sea, la mer.

On the way to the sea yestrday, I hummed the song La Mer, and it later occured to me that La Mer, would surely be one of my 'Desert Island Discs'! Now, it's unlikely that I will get an invite to share my 8 desert island discs with million of BBC listeners on the radio programme of the same name, but I can share them with you.

For the next 8 days I'm going to tell the 8 records I'd take with me on a desert island. Here's the first of my desert island discs.

The sea is a great love of mine. I have very happy early memories of day trips to the seaside at Rhyl in North Wales, and later Blackpool (the Paris of the North). Later as a young teenager I spent two weeks besides the wild Atlantic on the island of Harris in the Outer Hebrides.

When I was 17, I made my first trip across the English Channel to Calais in France. This song "La Mer" by Charles Trenet brings back those memories of France and my visits to the seaside.




Tomorrow's disc is altogether different.

Seaside photography

For me, the window of opportunity for taking a good holiday photograph at the seaside is very small, perhaps as little as 10 days.

I spent the morning walking along the beaches of a stretch of the Mediterranean. Today was a good day for photographing beach activities. Hot, but with a strong offshore breeze, it made a very pleasant morning.

Last week there were not enough people on the beach, OK for the romantic deserted beach shot, but not suitable for what I wanted.

Next week will be July and 95% of Europeans will be fighting for space on the beach, the sea will be turned into foam by crowds of people jumping up and down. August is the same or worse, the 5% who didn't make it for July will definately be paddling and swimming in August.

So my window is this week and perhaps the last week in August. I need people, but not too many.

This is my photograph for this morning. It's what I had in mind and I hope it graces a magazine cover in the near future.