Rustington

14 Feb
Originally uploaded by Mike Reed of Surrey.

Right. Today I took my Mum, fresh from the hospital after her heart surgery, to Rustington-on-Sea, where she is to spend a few days at a convalescent home on the seafront.

It was a spectacularly beautiful drive through the Sussex countryside, and we passed no end of gorgeous, picture-postcard English villages and acres of rolling country. All of it flaring gold, copper and bronze in the low, bright winter sunlight, and casting long, soft shadows over the fields.

Then we arrived in Rustington, a charming place near Littlehampton, and drove along the sea road (called Sea Road), into the light of a setting sun that speared the rolling southern sea with a bright sword of flame. Etc, etc.

And where was my camera during all of this?

At home.

So I was forced to snap a picture of my Mum's new temporary accommodation on my phone, recalling to myself that you can send pictures to Flickr from your mobile.

I'm sure you can, too, but I'm buggered if I can work out how. Email? On my phone? Doesn't want to work.

So I end up forced to take a picture of the picture on my phone with my real camera.

And now the very lovely place in which my Mum resides (that's her window on the first floor, behind the balustrade) looks like the sort of place Norman Bates might call home.

And I have proved that sometimes, a picture requires a thousand words of explanation. Or near enough.

A lesson learned, I suppose.