A Hard Life
Broadstairs, Kent, April 2005
We have been visiting our friends Claire and Guy in Broadstairs, and these visits follow a very reliable pattern: the morning is spent at Stone Bay, where they have a beach hut, the children run themselves comprehensively into the ground, and then everyone retreats back to the house for lunch and a measure of quiet. Raffy and Monty had spent the morning charging around in the sand with Claire and Guy's son Woody, who is about the same age as Raff — a friendship that more or less guarantees maximum chaos at all times.
After lunch, Monty — not yet two — had clearly decided that enough was enough. I found him like this on the sofa: completely and utterly defeated by the day, wrapped in a towel, sunglasses still perched crookedly on his head, and a fine constellation of sand grains still distributed across his face and chin. He did not stir when I took this photograph. He didn't even twitch.
It was a lovely early spring day — one of those unexpectedly warm April afternoons that feels like summer has arrived early, just to make a point.
Pentax Optio WP, 38mm, 1/40 sec, f/3.3, ISO 50, Lightroom, Photoshop, Silver Efex Pro 2
