Picture: Newcastle Keelmen   All through Boxing Day the east wind roared against the house and lashed the slates with sleety horizontal rain. In my attic office the noise of the wind was relentless, battering the roof, rocking the windows, so that you could be aware...

All the bodies were lying in the same way: necks drooped submissively, eyes closed, black wings folded into the white belly, the claws gripped together and stretched out behind. I was sad when I saw the first one, but I accepted it. Birds do die at sea, do wash up on...

I am not writing this week.  Instead, I am doing the accounts for our business, a holiday house in Berwick, and it is a tedious task. The bank statements must be matched with receipts, the spouse harassed over missing items, mystery payments tracked down, and then it...

A favourite walk from our house is along the pier to the red-and-white lighthouse, now redundant, that still stands guard over the entrance to the estuary. The pier runs south through the rocks and mudflats below the tideline before turning east alongside the channel...

  One of the joys of living by the sea are the ever-changing views across the estuary. But the severe frost and snow of recent days took change to a new level, to near unrecognisable. The water draining down the cliffs turned into yard-long organ pipes of glittering...