#responsiveenvironments

Obs. 9 

Friday 1st April, 11.15pm-12.15am

I decided to go down to the beach, the latest I would dare on a Friday night to see what is going on.   I could smell smoke which made me hesitant when turning the corner to get onto the promenade and on further inspection turned out to be a group of mid-teenagers lighting a fire further down the beach.

I took my seat to begin the evening’s observation.   When I first sat down no one passed by for 15/20 minutes.   In this time I got up to walk about and keep warm in the cold night wind and whilst doing this I counted to see how many lights were broken along the length of the prom that was visible and I counted what I thought to be 4 broken lampposts, including the lamppost that was broken next to me.   It was either that or there weren’t lampposts in the places I thought there to be but was too far away to tell.   This goes with what people were saying in my interviews about the beach needing better looked after.

The first person that passed me looked to be the same age as the kids lighting fires along the beach seemed to be.   He didn’t stop for any reason as I'm guessing he was just heading home.   

Friday 29th March

What brings you to the beach this morning?

Sprints, I play American Football for the East Kilbride Pirates and I come here to train sometimes.

Why do you like training here?

Harder on the muscles.

Less strain on knee and ankle joints.

Helping to prevent injury as much as possible.

How often do you come here?

Once a week.

What do you like about the beach/promenade?

The sand for training.

Nothing really appeals to me to me, I use it purely for training.

What improvements would you like to see in order to make the beach seem appealing to you?

Friday 29th March

I decided to go down as early as I could muster up one morning to see what was going on at this time of the day.   I arrived at 8.15am on a foggy morning. It was dry but according to the weather app on my phone it was meant to rain later on which I am guessing is why there was a hue over the water.

There was a man running sprints between two points on the sand and he came up from the beach after about 10 minutes.   I approached him and asked him if he would be okay with me interviewing him.   He didn’t come across as the nicest guy in the world but he agreed which was good as I wanted to interview someone who used the beach for exercise which could have been difficult as people who exercise don’t tend to stop.

The was an abundance of dog walkers in the last half an hour of the observation and a few dogs started to play fight together.   No one in the whole hour used the sand apart from the man doing sprints and the 9 or 10 dogs I saw going up and down the shore.

There was an elderly couple who looked to be out for a walk making the most of the weather before it was meant to deteriorate later on but the man wasn’t able to move at a very fast pace.

Saturday 26th March, 6-7pm

The sun had just gone down but still illuminating the sky from beyond the horizon.   There were quite a few people buzzing about the area and, again, quite a few dog walkers and people out getting some exercise but as I sat down there were 3 people, a father and his son and daughter (I think), staring over the Firth of Forth looking at the pink/orange sky in the distance.   These people were there for around 5-10 minutes before they eventually wandered off further down the promenade.  There were 4 or 5 dogs on the sand around the same time, 2 of them running back and forth chasing a ball the owner was throwing for them whilst slowing making their way further along the beach.   One of the other dogs wouldn’t stop barking at its owner to throw the ball she was holding but for whatever reason she wouldn’t throw it.

For the first time during any of these observations, someone sat down on one of the benches where I sit during my observations.   A man sat his daughter on the bench to put on her rollerblades and then returned to his car to put her shoes in the boot.   He then returned and the girl started to skate down the prom in a very inelegant fashion.

2 runners went by chatting with one another on the way, not going at a particularly fast pace but just enjoying the nice evening.   There was a bike chained up that isn’t usually there, locked to a lamppost, but in the hour I was there no one came to unlock it.

1.8 End of the rainbow

What brings you to the beach tonight?

I like to get away and walk my dog here when it isn’t too windy.

It’s good for a skate at this time of night.

Why do you like walking your dog here?

It’s usually quiet at this time of night and skate in peace and Neville (the dog) can run about as much as he wants and he likes the sea.

Are there any improvements you would like to see done to the beach/promenade? (especially at this area).

I would suggest, if anything, the ground should be smoother.   I think it should have been smooth in the first place and I don’t think they were thinking of skaters when they made it.

There should be more bins, I don’t feel like there is enough.

Keep it cleaner because it’s quite a mess at the moment.

Friday 18th March, 9.10 - 9.55pm

Went back to the beach tonight for the second night in a row.   I planned to get there around the same time as last night but ended up getting there a bit later around 9pm.   The car park was just as full as the night before but, this time, there were people playing football in the astroturf pitches further up from the car park.

When I first get to the observation spot and sit down a group of young teenagers go by making a hell of a noise as they do, screaming and shouting at each other, still audible when they get round the corner out of my line of sight.   A jogger in high-vis gear runs by me, gasping for air, shortly followed by a man on a skateboard walking his dog at the same time.   He looks friendly so I stopped him and asked him if it would be okay to do an interview with him for this university module.   [He agreed and the interview will be in the next post].

I tried to keep track of who went by the observation spot in the few minutes taken for the interview with the skateboarder.   Another dog walker went by who had to pull his dog away from the tiny dog that the skateboarder had, then there was another dog walker on the beach that I noticed and finally, a woman walking along the promenade herself, wrapped up in a massive puffy jacket, scarf, hat and gloves (feeling the cold).

The wind had picked up since finishing the interview and it was noticeably colder, there was still a couple people out walking but no one was really interacting with the surroundings apart from the dog walker on the beach when I was conducting the interview.