"Look at it this way"

Regular readers of the blog will know that I visit Sidmouth each year to visit the cliffs that I featured as a case study in the OCR A and B GCSE Geography books that I wrote (which are now in a 2nd edition, which is excellent). There are regular clif falls and the cliff has retreated substantially over the last few years and the East Beach is closed off to people because of the danger. I was there last week during the Sidmouth Folk Festival (which was back in person once again) and took these images. There is a smartphone mount where you can place your phone and take an image to upload to the website.  I did this to contribute to the citizen science efforts to monitor the retreat of the cliffs. It appears there was yet another cliff fall earlier, which has closed off the beach again. ⚠️ If you're soaking up the sun in #Sidmouth this weekend, please remember that access to East Beach is closed for public safety due to frequent cliff falls. Please take note of signs and follow ad...

Down to Sidmouth this afternoon, and I saw the new cliff collapses which happened over the weekend - there were five of them it seems. I check on these each year I come down to Devon as they were used as a case study of coastal erosion and management in the first edition of the OCR A and OCR B GCSE Geography textbooks I co-wrote for Hodder back in the day.  While there, I saw a cameraman filming inserts for the evening news, and the presenter was then live from Sidmouth this evening. There were two landslides visible here... a larger one in the background.

OK, I admit, I have a book problem. I could easily have bought many more books over the last few weeks including one on the villages of the East Coast which have been lost to the sea. .. I had a delivery of Nomadland last week, and then went on to devour the first part of it. I'd read a lot about the new book by Tom Cox , which came into being thanks to Unbound. It's about the landscape (one of my latest preoccupations) and also features SW Devon and Norfolk - two areas I know very well. Reading the first chapter, I could visualise the places Tom was describing having visited them, or driven past them many times. The idea of exploring and getting to know your local area is something that will be a theme for some of my work in 2018, and this book has plenty to say about that...

Thanks to Ben King for the lead to this book which has been published online. When I used to teach the Soils and Hydrology Unit of the old Cambridge 'A' level back in the day this would have been perfect. This sort of complexity has been lost from many modern specifications, but for those who want to see why soil matters, this is a good read. It explores the role of natural flood management, and the importance of the topsoil and good soil health in maintaining a healthy drainage. Great for higher level students in particular. Click here to read online. It's produced by the East Devon Catchment Partnership

A little Flickrslidr slideshow of some of my favourite Devon images from my recent family holiday... Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR .