Hello, I’m NCS. I write short notes from a little yellow beach hut on Lancing beach, about reading, leading, family, lighthouses and whatever the sea puts in my head that week. Be curious, not judgemental.
Latest notes
The Slipway
Every boat, sooner or later, has to come out of the water. Not because anything has gone wrong, but because the things that slow a boat down are the things its owner stopped noticing long ago. A little seaweed here, a few barnacles there, and one morning you realise you have been sailing for years…
Déjà Vu, Algérie
These two came out of a packet of mixed stamps. A random set of lighthouse stamps purchased on ebay. I found the blue one first. A little later, the green one. Same palm tree, same road, same bay. I had to put them side by side to be sure. They’re from Algeria’s Views of Algeria…
Knot Ruined
A wooden postcard of the Grand Traverse Lighthouse from my post pal Eric, after his tour of Lake Michigan. Hand-cancelled, hand-carried, and not a crack on it.
Ordinary Days
Ask most people about their life and they will tell you about the big days: weddings, births, the first job, the house move, the funerals. They are the days we photograph and come back to. But if you count them, there are not many. Most of a life is made of days nobody would think…
Tide and Seek
St Mary’s Lighthouse at Whitley Bay, sent from a California heatwave by my Postal Pal Darla. A tidal island, a tower standing upside down in a rock pool, and Edgar Allan Poe on the back.
Reader favourites
The ones people still mention to me.
New notes from the shed, now and then.
