Tested by Tide

Today we visit Antony Gormley’s Another Place at Crosby beach - an installation of 100 statues created to explore man's relationship with nature. Gormley explains: 


‘The seaside is a good place to do this. Here time is tested by tide, architecture by the elements and the prevalence of sky seems to question the earth's substance. In this work human life is tested against planetary time. This sculpture exposes to light and time the nakedness of a particular and peculiar body. It is no hero, no ideal, just the industrially reproduced body of a middle-aged man trying to remain standing and trying to breathe, facing a horizon busy with ships moving materials and manufactured things around the planet.’

It seems almost painfully pertinent right now. 

It’s my second visit here - the last being almost exactly two years previously. Today the weather gods are with us, the dark clouds breaking briefly to allow the late afternoon sun to shine on both us and Gormley’s creations. I love this place - so close to the ugliness of industry and trade, yet on the horizon the Welsh hills rise defiantly. 

As always, I struggle to decide on my main, but I choose the one I feel fits best with Gormley’s words, leaving three others as extras.

The morning has been spent in a long consultation at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine - the next stage in trying to solve my very own medical conundrum. More tests, more planned biopsies - but at least they have a couple of lines of inquiry. I’ll be back in January. 

And then we have a brief wander round Liverpool’s Christmas Market - an unexpected treat. Yes, I know it’s early, but drinking mulled wine and listening to Christmas music is a wonderful escape.

So now we have a few days on the Lancashire coast - combining holidays with medical investigations definitely sweetens the metaphorical pill!