Another day, another beach!

At Blackpool Sands today, just along Start Bay from Slapton where we were yesterday, to meet Ben's Brother Ed, Sis-in-Law Emma and baby Sam for a walk - not forgetting Wurzel & Rusty the dogs - who were indeed the excuse for the walk in the first place! They were also the excuse for a lot of ball throwing - which all parties enjoyed! The weather was much as yesterday - grey, misty, and with a fine rain falling, but it was pleasant enough walking regardless.

We arrived a little ahead of Ed & Emma so had a wander along the beach ourselves first - the rocks at the end proved to be fascinatingly covered in barnacles, mussels etc as the picture above shows. Also rocks shaped like birds - can you spot it?! Spotting things in rocks is a little like finding stuff in clouds I think...if you can relax your mind to the possibilities then there's no end of things there to be seen...you just have to look!

Robyn




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A grey day...

But nice for a potter about on a beach, nonetheless.



We went out to Slapton Sands, a fairly regular spot for us to head to when in Devon, and had a bit of a wander about. The picture above probably doesn't really do justice to just HOW damp and murky it was! Slapton has lots of flat stones ideal for skimming, so while Ben was amusing himself doing that (with a commentary along the lines of "that one did SIX - did you see it?") I decided that what the beach really needed was a mini Calanais Standing Stones so I set to work.



There is something about constructions on beaches - when I was small my Uncle Bob and I (with the aid of Auntie D) used to dig "boats" on beaches, large enough for two to sit in, with benches and everything. More recently Ben and I undertook the construction of a quite sizeable (well, by beach standards!) dam at Tolsta in Lewis. Building things on beaches is fun!

What's even more fun though is that having had a good old wander, skim & build on a windy, rainy beach, we're now back at the house, warm, dry and about to drink tea!

Robyn

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I Heart beaches...

I love water and the sea...always have, which, considering I was born and grew up in a city, is possibly quite strange. I love boats too - any sort of boat, from the little dinghy that the family have down in Devon, to the MV Hebrides ferry we take across to North Uist, even the Woolwich Ferry! Boats are fun. Make that F-U-N. With a capital Ffff! When we're in the Hebrides we generally try to take as many boat trips as we can squeeze in - across to Harris from Berneray is a favourite trip...we've been known to do that one a second time..."just because". The Sound of Barra (Eriskay to Barra) is another great one. We use the ferry from the mainland to Skye because it's just SO much more exciting than the road, and have been known to divert down a little tiny narrow twisty road on Skye just so we can get the Glenelg Ferry across.

A spin-off from the loving beaches thing is loving stones, shells and all things beach-combed. If you were to put your hand into the pockets of my waterproof you'd find a random collection of such items - a small, perfectly rectangular piece of driftwood - roughly the dimensions of a bar of soap and worn to a wonderful smoothness by the water. A small heart shaped stone that my fabulous husband found and gave to me on the beach at Berneray. Several tiny shells from the beach at Clachan Sands, North Uist - picked up on our final day on holiday a couple of years ago, and a china bottle-stopper beachcombed on Baleshare. (It's best that you DON'T put your hand in there by the way, as there might be used tissues and things too....not quite as pleasant as shells etc!). We usually pick things up, look at them, and then put them back, but every now and again something appears which is "pocket worthy" and it gets added to the randomness. Odd? Perhaps...but it's always nice to have familiar things around you isn't it - especially when those things remind you of cherished places or people.

What odd things have you kept "Just because"?

Robyn