Steve and I managed to
squeeze a bike ride in yesterday afternoon after all the things on the ‘To Do’
list were ticked of. It had been a race against time when on a nice day, we
watched as the day became less nice, less sunny, more cloudy and more windy. In
the end we got out for a nice ride and at our turn point took bets between us as
to whether or not we could get home before those dark clouds gathered up and
headed for our back garden, where I had two lines of washing out. The wash
would be dry by then, flapping away and me on my bike, trying to hold the
handle bars, crossing my fingers at the same time that the rain would hold off until
we got home. I felt the first splatter as I wheeled my bike through the garden
and managed just the pull everything off the lines and throw them indoors
before it started to get really wet.
My swim went well this morning
and afterwards I quickly dried my hair off which I don’t always do. I had warned
Steve that I wanted to make an inspection of the shingle bank opposite to
swimming pool prior to any idea of getting in the sea.
Since the shingle bank first
appeared after a series of winter storms a few years ago it has been a source
magnetic fascination to me and I find it hard to believe that most people have
not even noticed it and look at me with a totally blank expression when I talk
about it.
My deep love of nature causes
me to notice every bird, every tree in every field, every cloud and certainly
the appearance of a mile of shingle, that in the fifty seven years that I have
lived right here in Littlehampton, was never there before. If I am out for a
run or a walk and a Buzzard or a Crow or a Magpie is anywhere in the
surrounding area and in the range of what I can see, I will see it. So when a great
dump of shingle starting about fifty yards off the bottom of the beach line
where the sand starts suddenly appears, it is going to make me jump out of my
skin, wide eyed and slack jawed.
I fell instantly in love
with that new gift from nature. During the first summer that it was established,
we started to do sea swim practices involving the strange lump and would swim
diagonally from the waters edge at high tide to the furthest point of the bank which
had been marked with buoy, and then swim back again it made a nice practice
swim and we did it time and time again. The swim was often included when in
2014 I had undertaken to do a mini Triathlon every day from June first until my
75th birthday on August 14th making seventy five mini tri’s
in all.
Every winter since the bank
appeared it has changed shape a little with each winter storm. My fascination
has not faded in the slightest. It is like an enormous sleeping giant in a
sci-fi movie. Somebody asked me recently why I am so interested in such an
inanimate object. Well. I took a hike over this inanimate object this morning,
with Steve struggling to keep up with me as I tramped forward. He has a tweeky
knee and the rough surface of large rocks and pebbles was most uncomfortable
for him and he was being careful not to cause further damage to himself.
This area that was at first
just a small eyot or ait (meaning a small island in a lake or river) of stones
and rocks, has now joined itself to the beach and then stretches out to the
southeast for a good diagonal half mile. So it has ceased to be a little island,
it has thrown out and anchor to the beach.
When you make it out to the
furthest point, as I did this morning, having checked for the last ten days
when would be a convenient low tide for my little adventure, you see that the
shape is similar to a giant Manta Ray and that on the south end where it meets
the sea at low tide there is a sort of inlet like a paddling beach of its own,
right on the far side that is the first part to disappear as the tide starts to
come in again. Then it hides under the surface.
To me it is not an inanimate
object. I checked that too and most definitions of inanimate say things to the
effect of; Not endowed with life of spirit, lacking consciousness, lacking the
power of mobility or motion, a thing that is not alive such as a chair, a book,
a rock like sofa cushions or a football.
To my way of thinking, this
is a not just a thing and not inanimate. It is in motion; albeit slow motion. I
think I will claim it as my own, since I feel that I deserve to be allowed to
adopt this living mass for myself; my own massive Frankenstein eyot. I feel a
mothers love for it and I thank Nature or God if you like for presenting it to
me for my own personal quiet joy.
It is alive with winkles and
all sorts of growing organisms. Watch this space and I might be marching down
there with my huge flag and rename it ‘Dafs Island’.
You will need a passport to visit.
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