O'er moorland and brae: The grey pound effect

We didn't get far today. If we drove twenty kilometres before lunch that would be all. Different things stopped us each time we attempted to move on. Simple little things like a field of Hallowe'en pumpkins, ripening beautifully for celebrations on All Saints Eve.

The sun continues to warm our blood daily and our morning coffee stop along little Avon Beach at Mudeford, was filled with folk relaxing, everyone talking to each other about the weather. All grey haired.

Someone mentioned to us recently that the 'Grey Pound' was transforming this part of the world. And it is. Retirees from London, or the north, seem to be heading to the West Country in droves. This part of England looks to be booming, in ways the rest of the country is not.

It could be the promise of the sun, which always hangs warm in the air. Whole new subdivisions are being built in many of the major towns along the coast--and it is not all Prince Charles and his consortium, but developers with very similar thinking. They are clearly targeting the over 50s market. Their banners are flying, and many advertise that they are sold out already, prior even to completion.

Our coffee shop today is filled with such Grey Pounders. There is even parking for their motorised wheelchairs and push trolleys, and some carry their own portable oxygen canisters, and many their walking sticks. All are on the move: mobility issues not hindering them.

This particular beach has long been a popular one. The New Forest practically reaches down to the sea along parts of this coast, and back in the Georgian era, George IV, when he was not hunting deer in his royal forest, would "take the waters" right here. Folk were encouraged to drink the sea water, here, too, for medicinal purposes. Little bathing cubicles were wheeled out onto the sand and members of the public could hire them as dressing rooms from the Conductor of the Baths. Today folk often own their own fixed bathing sheds, some of which can cost as much as a small house depending on where it is sited.

Mudeford is colourful. Further along the bay at the quay, fishermen with rods are catching bucket loads of good fat fish from their perches on the docks. Behind them one of the small fleet of local commercial fishermen still operating is unloading his catch: and being filmed by the BBC as he does so.

The docks are piled with an assortment of fishing traps for lobster and crab, whelk and prawn. The larger ones are cuttlefish traps and have been out on the bottom of the bay for much of the season, harvested often during that time. But, the traps are left there while the young cuttlefish hatch, one of the fishermen told us. The little ones are then released to mature and be trapped again next season, when they are likely to be sold off to Europe. This time of the year the fishermen start bringing up the traps and storing them on the docks before the seas turn winter wild. But that won't be today. The weather is sublime.