Clearwater, Florida; a home from home that I have grown up in for over twenty five years and am full of memories.  Some happy, some sad; mostly of being bored when I was a kid.  As time as gone on it has become a place of comfort.  An escape from the City and a place to recharge.

It’s a place of solitude.  You can get nowhere easily without a car, perhaps a bike if you are lucky.  Forget walking to a local shop – are you mad?  There is no local shop.  There’s a beach with rows of Condos (expensive blocks of flats to us) or houses on the sea.  And I was lucky enough to be in a house on a sea to witness the sea safari.

To be in a dwelling on the sea with only a murmur of cars behind you is a grounding experience.  I arrived exhausted from the energy of the city and I knew I had minimal time to rest.  Is it not ridiculous that life can be so hectic in the city even for someone without children that they feel so ill they have to rest?  I’d over eaten and over drunk for months.  Well that didn’t stop in Florida but the food was at least healthier and the booze less.  I blame all that sea air for having to go to bed before 10pm.

During some time with family that reside there I got to see a strange experience for a person who has no children, which was babies learning to swim.  My niece of 18 months was going for swimming lessons and I was impressed by her ability to actually swim albeit a panicked tiny amount but still it was impressive.  Unfortunately I was distracted by the other half of the pool containing some pensioners doing a class of swim aerobics.  I couldn’t help but notice how full of non movement their class was.  If anything they just seemed to be still in a circle and not really treading water at all but then why should I have been surprised?  The guy taking the class was bigger than all of them.  How could they have a sense of hope looking at him?

So not much to report on the first few days, except relaxation and watching the dolphins swim by morning and eve.  A baby turtle even popped by to say hello.  A dead seahorse had been discarded on the dock but that wasn’t as much of a shock as the giant dead fish in the pool that some Pelican had had enough of. 

It’s hot in Florida the sunshine state; too hot for someone as fair skinned as myself to enjoy but I got out there and soaked up the Vitamin D.  I don’t think my body had seen the sunshine due to the UK’s miserable weather from the summer before.

I ate seafood galore (although the lobster was from South Africa which I think might ruin the local seafood idea a tad) and enjoyed the stillness.  On my last day at the house, I threw my bread to the fish (always one to give back to nature even if it was garlic bread), and then panicked as a sea of crust  lay atop the waves  and started to roll towards the neighbours.  I thought fish ate bread? I would be forever known as the polluter or poisoner of wildlife.  Well I didn’t have to worry because after not so long the birds like a Hitchcock movie came pelting down.  Problem solved.  If the birds died it would be nowhere near me.

It was farewell to the Sunshine State and onwards to New York City.