Excursions

Jolin, Wells-Next-the-Sea, Norfolk, UK
[ISO 400, Kodak Portra NC]

Cold is an obvious adjective to describe winter, but looking back at the few photos I’ve collected over the past months reminds me just how cold this one was. There was the hours-long endurance test of Obama’s inauguration in DC on a particularly icy morning, the painfully-below-freezing New Year’s day where I joined the Polar Bear Club swim in the ocean off Coney Island, and the vacation with my family in Norfolk, including a wildly-inappropriate-for-the-climate stroll on the beach, seen above (that’s my mother with the fur-lined hood pulled over her head).

Unsurprisingly, UK beach scenes in the summer don’t look too different from this. They often involve a group of people huddled against the elements, thermos and mug of tea in hand, imaginations running full throttle with images of hot sun overhead and real sand between toes replacing the real-life overcast sky and pebbles beneath feet. Although not evident in this picture, my brother had substituted tea for a cone of chips from the local fish & chip shop, which evidently gave him enough energy to keep his expression from showing on his face just how frigid and windy this moment was.