BEACH

Remember the apocalyptic novel, 'On The Beach', by Neville Shute? Well, who would have thought the beach could have moved to downtown Manhattan? Mind you, I discovered recently that the innocuous suburb of a very big city in which I reside could once have been on the edge of a wild, wind-swept ocean. It seems we are standing on a sandstone ridge, with all sorts of underground streams running through it....No wonder our tamarisk tree and Jerusalem artichokes do so well – they like a sandy soil.