The massive concentration of vapour-trails over the familiar presence of the Midland Hotel set me musing with a smile: we could be being invaded!

I walked up the promenade a little way to get a better view of the invasion. Tess was grumbling and pulling at the lead. She’d had a ‘frantic fifteen’ (minutes) chasing her favourite ball on a beach – newly opened to dogs for the winter – and was in no mood for speculative investigating…

‘We’ were due a coffee from the Rotunda Bar; a casual venue, dog-friendly and facing the beach at the top of the Midland Hotel’s Art Deco steps.

But the intense blue sky and the feeling that something was going on ‘up there’ drew me away from that precious refreshment.

I’d seen them before; mysterious alignments between near objects and suspiciously similar distant ones!

Now fully alerted, I moved around to the front of the Midland Hotel to study the bright sky and its mysterious markings.

And there they were: chasing the great orb of the day star across our skies.

The danger – if danger it was – had passed, but the blue left peacefully behind spoke only of the gentle morning, undisturbed once more.

-🔷-

©Stephen Tanham 2024

All photos taken and processed on an iPhone 12 ProMax.

Stephen Tanham is a writer-photographer and mystical teacher.