Shells, Sunshine and the Sovereign

Before anything else, let me just say that I hope I didn't sound like I was sneering at trailer parks in yesterday's post. Some of my best friends (and Dave's parents!) live in mobile homes and I didn't mean to be snide about them. I only meant that, in a real estate context, having a large historic house surrounded by a trailer park would count against its value. I think most real estate agents would agree with me on that. So mea culpa if what I wrote sounded otherwise.

ANYWAY...

Let's talk about yesterday! The weather was MUCH better than it was on Christmas. In fact for a brief time in the morning, we even had sunlight streaming in through our windows, which made Olga happy.



Doesn't she look blissed out?

In late morning I took a long walk down the beach to Normans Bay -- without Olga, she of the pebble-sensitive feet. I spent a lot of time beachcombing, which has to be one of my favorite things to do. It combines my enthusiasm for finding things with being outside and on the water.

This is the kind of stuff I find here -- cockles, boat shells, scallops, winkles, mussels, whelks and colorful rocks. Very North Atlantic, though some of these critters can also be found in Florida.

I threw all those shells back, but I did keep this one, a curious bit of oyster shell (I think?) that the sea has carved and smoothed into the perfect shape of a baby's ear. It seemed like such a rare and delicate creation.

Here's a little video I took near Martello Tower No. 55, now a private home. You'll see the tower and shingle beach, an iridescent jingle shell I found, and the low sun over the water. This was taken right around noon, so that's about as high as the sun gets at this time of year. (You can hear some kids shouting toward the end -- there was virtually no one on the beach but I had the bad judgment to make my video with a family standing not too far behind me!)

I walked back partly along the coast road to give my feet a break. Remember how I said I was concerned about the effect of the shingle on my shoes? Well, indeed, part of the sole has come away from the upper on one shoe and both have serious wear. I guess I need to get some decent wellies, which is what I see most people wearing out there.

This picture doesn't look like much, but it was hard to take! That's the remains of the Royal Sovereign Lighthouse, which until recently stood on a shoal almost 7 miles offshore. There used to be a large platform atop that column with the lighthouse perched on it, but the whole thing is being dismantled. The lighthouse portion has been brought ashore and will become part of a beachfront park; the platform was also taken down. So all that's left now is that lonely support column, which will be removed next year.

We have a spyglass in our cottage, which allows us to look out at the water. I took this photo by carefully positioning my iPhone camera at the lens of the spyglass. It was a pain in the neck and it took many tries before I got a usable photo. You're welcome! I wish I'd thought to do this during our visit in July, when the lighthouse was still intact. The platform was so weird-looking. Dave and I initially thought it was an oil rig.

Speaking of Dave, our plans are changing here at Stone's Throw cottage. Dave has to return to London today for a long-scheduled routine infusion of drugs to treat his Crohn's. He tried to postpone it but if he did, they wouldn't be able to get him in again until February, which is too long to wait for his medication. He's decided rather than travel up and back again, he's going to simply stay in London. So he's leaving this morning and taking our big suitcase home, and Olga and I will spend the next two nights here at Stone's Throw by ourselves before heading home on Friday.