About 30 hours late, the sun had put in a glorious appearance at about 6pm this evening and I decided to go out to the beach to enjoy it, read some National Geographic and put my notebook in order. I was just in the process of completing all of the above when it started to rain. It was raining in that way which sometimes turns into a downpour and sometimes passes but I wasn't entirely sure which way it was going to go. Given I had lots of paper out (relatively) I decided to finish up and pack it all into my bag. I then realised I really wasn't fussed by the rain when it was just me getting wet (rather than bits of paper getting soggy) so thought I'd walk around to the other side of my "sticky out bit" before heading for home.
Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. The tide was already sufficiently high that getting around the headland was going to involve serious wading and I've too much respect for the sea to try my hand at that. So instead I turned along the shoreline the other way and started following the edge of the tide as it came in. Walking along I was just gazing at the water and the things in it. And my, were there a lot of crabs and jelly fishies. The crabs were mainly blanched and very dead (but it just seemed surprising how many there seemed to be) and the jelly fishies weren't looking too healthy either although I did see a couple of little ones that seemed the right side of the grave. I ended up walking the length of that particular "cove" of the Morecambe front (it's not a cove, but I'm not sure how to describe it otherwise - a wide expanse of Morecambe bay shore bounded by two groynes is what it is practically), all the way along the shoreline and ventured almost to the rocks under the stone jetty except that the water seemed to have developed a rather unenticing scum (oil from boats? Some other sort of pollution?) and I decided to curtail about 30 metres from the rocks. And wander back.
It was delightful. Seeing the sky. Seeing the sea. Feeling the sand under my feet and the water on my legs. Seeing beasties. Seeing seaweed. Just wandering. As I reached my "starting point" (my actual starting point was somewhere between 10 and 20 metres further into the waves) I popped my flipflops on in an attempt not to get sand all over my feet. Slipping around in my flipflops slowed me down again which was good (always good to take the slow option when possible) and I meandered back, still in somewhat of a sea-and-sand induced trance.
I'd popped some paper and a can into the recycling bins and was just coming round past the Breeze Cafe when I realised just how far away I'd gone. I passed a guy who just had a look of ambivalence - and realised that the "normal world" was beginning to hit me again. The cars. The noise. The concrete. The worries. The everyday.
I'm slowly beginning to understand and be able to explain what it is I love about Morecambe and today's expedition to the great beyond on my doorstep (I was no further than 1 mile from my front door throughout my meander, and mostly much less) somehow brought a whole host of it together. Morecambe for me is about the simple things. Good food. Space. Sea. Sky. Reflection.
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It took me nigh on 48 hours to get my feet on the beach this weekend. Quite how that happened I have no idea but that was the reality! I've spent a lovely couple of days preparing for and hosting friends - none of whom knew each other before, some of whom had worked for the same company and all of whom just settled into spending time with each other. There was cake. There was bowling. There was quiche (no one else was convinced but I was quite taken! This was vegan quiche, of course). There was curry. There were cocktails. There was tea (lots of tea). And there were many many good times had. Lovely to spend time with each of them and lovely to see them enjoying getting to know each other.
I'm really lucky in that I can stop what I'm doing and go for a "beach break". I don't need to plan a whole afternoon, nor even a whole day, at the beach. I can just pick up my blanket (or wide scarf), my keys and a book and I'm there. Brilliant. And now that I'm learning to do that when the mood takes me (and, indeed, head back to Tigger Towers when the time feels right) I get to spend a lot more time on the beach at the right time. Lucky lucky me :)
And today's idea for the day is to create Tigger's Morecambe Chronicles. Not really chronicles, but "The Morecambe Chronicles" just sounded ace. I love showing people bits and pieces of Morecambe. I love discovered new bits. I love learning more about the place and getting to share that at various moments. I also love the idea of friends coming up to stay for a weekend or so, possibly even when I'm not around, and having a few pages of interesting notes on what's around, interesting places to investigate and maybe even comments from previous visitors who've all added to the chronicles. A project in the making...
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