Beach Art

The flotsam and jetsam has risen up on Haverigg shingle bank and stands sentinel.

In the stillness of the day nothing moved

The little mountain of Black Combe watches over sea and land

And still nothing moves

The jellyfish does not want to be here down in the sand it wants to move;

and dreams of the pools left behind by the tide.  We move on -

and in the distance see another sentinel on top of the sand dunes

From the sea to dune

an everlasting supply of tide washed buoys to gather and to string up on the skyline by our mystery artist.

Nature's art of tide and time is also gathering, perhaps to grow another shingle bank

of the beach pebbles remnants from deep time.

Last Day of Summer

Walton on the Naze beach, Essex

The weather forecast is that today's high temperature is summer's last hurrah and that storm clouds are gathering.

Of course one could hire a beach hut and enjoy the seaside whatever the weather and

this one comes with its own puffin.

Love

I love the seashore and so too do the people who own this beach chalet at Silecroft as they have woven it in fishing line and string on their fence. I took this looking out to sea

but had to give the photograph the 'lomo' treatment to boost the colour viewed from the 'right' side. The full sentiment is Peace and Love, the mantra of the sixties which the world could do with more of right now.

The steps to the chalet from the beach  are decorated with the flotsam and jetsum of the tide - nets, floats and lifebuoys;

including one lifebuoy from an old  fishing boat the Gertrude Ann which plies its trade in the Irish Sea and must have lost this on one of its trips.  September has been an unusually warm and calm month so the beach had little of interest for the beachcomber but the rougher winter seas will bring all manner of items.  You may have noticed that the windows of the hut have their protective boards on so no-one was in residence. I hope they notice this mound of string next time they visit

because a bit of sunshine yellow would add to their pallet of colours and perhaps this balloon tag the theme.

 Peace and Love

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at L here

Drigg Dawdle

The name Drigg is probably Old Norse, drag or draga meaning 'watercourse down a valley', the village lies north of the River Irt as it makes its way from Wasdale Water to the Irish Sea .  On some old maps it gets called Dregg but that is probably the result of someone writing down the sound, the Cumberland dialect has a propensity for making two vowels sounds for one vowel. The parish of Drigg's population number has not changed much since 1688 when it was 560 even with the coming of the railways.

On the left are the old railway buildings now the 'Spindle Crafts' tea room and crafts shop. Straight ahead is the Victoria Hotel pub.  So much choice in a small area for a drink.  If we had been at the end of a walk the choice would have been the tea room but as it was the middle of the day

we choice the Victoria to slake our thirst with Jennings beer.

The gate by the pub leads to the railway station which originally opened in 1849 when the rolling stock was a step away, rather than a large step up as today, hence the portable steps for those who require them.

Any sign of a train?  This is a request stop only, a raised raised from the platform and the train will stop, although the drivers are always alert to passenger.  When a family with children took them from outside the pub just to watch the train coming we joined them so there was quite a crowd on the platform and the train

stopped.  I hope the driver was not too disappointed because nobody was boarding.  In its brief stop I managed to get part of the mural on the side (only a few of the local trains have these). It is advertising the National Railway Museum in York with a picture of the Mallard, holder of the world speed record for a Steam Train.  So much prettier than the sprinter train it appears on.

 As it turned out this was the perfectly themed headgear for this particular hot sunny day.

The signal man's duty over he comes down the steps, I'm going to take you over the crossing, through the gate and down the lane.

Passing the lazy bull, happily on the other side of the fence

And past the site of what was the Royal Ordnance Factory in World War Two, which  produced TNT.  Today it is a Low Level Waste Repository for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority while they wonder what to do with it, there is a few million years to decide.

Through the path's new gate with is wonderfully rounded sandstone weight to ensure it closes after walkers pass through

Eventually reaching the beach which on this day seemed to be popular with sea fishermen, as this remote corner has been for centuries, and noted in times past for its fisheries and mussel beds. We stopped by the sand dunes to have lunch before walking further up the coast to Seascale where we would take the train back home passing, but not stopping, at Drigg.

An  entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet this week sojourning at D here

On the Beach

Sea, beach and land merge under a blanket of snow. Dusk at Bardsea on the shores of Morecambe Bay.

ABC Wednesday - O is for Overcast

The first photograph is the sunniest its going to get on today's post. Imagine how overexcited I was when I seeing the compass points laid out in a garden. If only I had remembered last week for the N, guess I will wait until the next round for that. O is for west, or, as it is from my French holiday, ouest.

I live on the west coast of England where the Atlantic sometimes likes to bring us rain laden clouds which makes it rather overcast at times.

A beach is not just for summer it is for life. One of my favourite local beaches is Silecroft, here it is on a March day. It is quite a length and a mixture of shingle, rock and sand so you can enjoy a good walk whatever the weather. The people in the distance are doing just that. If beachcombing is your thing then sometimes there are sometimes interesting, and occasionally useful, finds after a stormy period of weather.
Some of the larger stones as the tide retreats, this is the stonier end. I have a picture of the sand dunes but the day was far too sunny. Now that's not something I have said before.

Another overcast day but this is on the south east coast of England in Kent. The yachts don't look they are in any danger of being taken out, protected against the weather with their little coats. The shingle is a lovely colour. This is Whitstable which is famous for
its oysters and oyster restaurants, the remains of their shells are everywhere. The ultimate beach recycling. I'll end with a poem, by the late Gavin Ewart, which may resonate more with those living or having holidayed, in countries and regions with unpredictable summers.

"Celestial Double Haiku of the Rising Sun" by Gavin Ewart

What makes our summer
so bloody annoying (air
travellers know well)

is that up above
those blasted clouds the sun is
shining hot as hell!










Jump Over to ABC Wednesday for more meanings of the Letter O