Beach Party Without a Blanket

Yesterday I took part with the Brough Bay Association in their semi annual beach clean up and fix up. Despite some showers and the ever present gusts of wind, it was a lovely day.

New events are always a bit of a challenge for me because that part of me that is the shy child who could go all day at school without speaking is still there. New situations and new people bring her out. I had something to do, which helps, and I knew at least two people there, but in the idled moments as we took a break for some lunch, I began to feel awkward and wandered down to the beach with my camera.

The tide was out, so the beach was full of sea weed--wrack, is the more accurate term, I think. I love its shiny, tangled masses on the beach and recently enjoyed knitting a scarf that simulated the colour and movement of sea weed. Two dogs frolicked on the beach--one jumped in; the other acted like a lifeguard or coxswain barking instructions to the swimming dog.

I walked, camera in hand, preoccupied by the light on a particularly fine tangle of seaweed when I noticed I had been joined by a young man. We talked about sea weed and it seemed perfectly natural when we found a long stem to put this stem back in the water in the hopes that the sea weed might grow again. He was looking at shells, so I picked up a limpet shell for him and told him the name and how it lived. As we walked back to the cliffside where we were working, I met his father and discovered that they had been living for some time in Wisconsin. We talked of snowstorms and 40 degree below zero weather and all that land around us with the sound of the ocean acting like a Greek chorus, reminding us why we are here.

I could sit for hours watching the shapes and colours of the water and the rocks and the birds--if you can tear me away from the sea weed, that is, but this day I had a duty to the beach to perform, so I said goodbye to my little friend from Wisconsin and went back to work.


The sun came out unreservedly in the early afternoon as the last of the workers climbed up the hill taking tools and cookware and umbrellas with them. The birds reclaimed their space: a kestrel hovered above the cliff edge and the gulls flew over the slipway.