Every so often The Green becomes filled with excited visitors to some event or other. They sit on the benches or bring rugs or collapsible chairs and picnic. This weekend is the Airshow.

Meanwhile the benches are beginning to fill up and men (always men) with big cameras are staking out places for their tripods. They all gaze towards the, as yet, empty sky above the bay.

The holm oak branches are weighed down with a mass of tiny golf ball shaped acorns.

Again there is plenty of room on the beach and with a spring tide a few wide pools are left on the flat sand while couples sit and wait for the moon to rise.

A strangely low-key bank holiday. A strong breeze ruffling up a decent swell and making curling white top waves for the visitors to delight in. Reading the notes from previous years, perhaps August Bank Holiday never were what they used to be.

If there is such a thing as a perfect August Bank Holiday weekend, this may be it. Blue sky, blue sea polished to a sheen, empty white sands.

In the heat of the early afternoon, two guys are sparring on the West Cliff Green. They crouch and sway. They bob and weave, bright green gloves flashing in the sunshine. As they dance, they close and rain a few choice blows before dancing apart.

Overhead great purple clouds are splashed and edged with mauve and brown and orange like a great expansive impressionist painting. Two young guys stand and marvel at the sight. Their dog seems entranced just as much as they are.

An extraordinary and rare Roll Cloud.

Here and there, though, a single flower responds to the moisture after the drought and opens in a determined effort to show that summer is still here.

The white, corded sheet of mackerel sky mirrors almost exactly the corduroy ridge and furrow of the green waves across the bay. The wind is still brisk and the sun is still warm but there is a calmness about the day.

Even the grey clouds are fat and jolly and the day is warm and pleasant.

And a man and his son are flying a big red yellow and blue kite which corkscrews and slews across the sky. As he he runs to pick it up, he says “It’s the day for it.” and launches it again skywards.

For the first time in two months there was enough rain to make puddles, stained tea dark from the mass of pine needles that littered the path and mirroring the silver sky.

Out on the bay, the mist makes it difficult to see where the polished steel water ends and the sky begins. Two fishing boats crossing the scene look as though they might be floating in mid-air.

Meanwhile on the green the keep fit boot camp are performing rigorous PE exercises at the behest of a hi-vis jacketed leader. There are about twenty of them tonight and they form a regimented line whilst, in the distance the kite surfer leaps from wave crest to wave crest.

Out in the bay, the lights of the Barfleur twinkle brightly as she slides towards the harbour mouth.