In the Sandman comics by Neil Gaiman, death is compared to the sea. Not a sudden surge that sweeps everything away but a tide that comes and goes gradually and slowly wears it all away. Penarth more then anywhere else in Cardiff reminds of this idea.
It once was a vibrant, bright promenade full of small businesses, a thrivingly active port and a bustling stone beach overflowing with families visiting the sea. But old age has crept slowly upon it and now with its gently decaying pier and slowly eroding sea front, the waterfront has taken on the atmosphere of a setting more akin to Wuthering Heights or the poems of Keats.
The night I took these pictures a storm was rolling in and the rain soaked me and the stony shore. I love nights like this when the sky turns to charcoal and the sea threatens to swallow everything in endless greys and greens. And I can for a second imagine a town recapturing what made it great, a beauty waterfront slowly reclaimed by the sea.
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