There are two static cranes preserved at the Royal William Yard a nod to the former industrial/naval history of this location. As we get nearer to Christmas the area is getting a little bit busier in the early evening as we go for our twilight walk. As part of my countdown to Christmas all I need to do is walk to the other side of the crane.
A burst of cerise lighting lights up the cab. To be fair the cab is lit up all year round but now the days are so short the illumination is a key location on my evening stroll. By complete contrast our morning outing was illuminated with some gorgeous sunshine.
Late blog alert. I’m not sure what happened to the early morning. I am in the grip of making Christmas presents that cannot be purchased this year for a variety of reasons. Brexit, Coronovirus, Supply Chain. Like an idiot I thought I would blog about my endeavours and realised mid-morning that that was a pretty mad idea if I am also aiming for an element of surprise. The picture above is a cheeky hint that I have been burning the candle at both ends to source recycled materials to create these gifts.
Giving nothing away I have to comment that my sewing machine needle appears to have shrunk its eye. So tricky was rethreading the needle I wondered if I was sewing by candlelight.
An illuminated magnifying glass, not recycled had to be purchased. The only glitch, so far in my drive to be more sustainable with this project.
Still giving nothing away, some of the recycled or repurposed materials last saw the light of day in 1974 when sewing by candlelight was actually a thing in the 3 day weeks. Electricity use was restricted to conserve energy as Industrial Action by rail and coal workers was limiting the ability to generate enough power for normal activity.
All will be revealed in exactly one month. Counting down to Christmas Now!
A timely reminder that to chose working in the arts is not without its crtitics. But once the scientists have done their bit and pulled or pushed us to the other side of our recent pandemic it is artists and creatives who will give us the good things that add sparkle and embelishment to life.
My Wednesday Ponder, brief and to the point. Enjoy it with your coffee.
Todays blog was knocked off the front page by another story of bobbing. This is how tranquil the area was when we went for a dip last night. But what lies underneath?
A playful seal! Spearmint the seal joined the two distance swimmers at the furthest buoy and swam back with them to one of the other swimmers. They calmly warned her that they were not alone. Not trusting them at all she disbelieved them. Calm, was not, in truth, how any of them were feeling . An onlooker who was alerted by their excited chatter said she had never seen anyone swim back to the shore so fast. On arrival back in Tranquility bay Spearmint played around with two other bobbers before noticing that the others were getting out, she joined them in a rush for the beach and the video that follows was her being calm with a background soundtrack of excited chatter.
I think it is safe to say that the whole encounter was a lot more exciting for the humans, Miss Spearmint just takes the whole thing very much in her stride.
I had known for a little while that this particular blog was going to be about illumination because I had tickets to attend an illumination festival in the Royal William Yard.What I hadn’t expected was that the sunset over our evening swim would be quite so spectacular. Just a tiny tweak on the saturation of this image brought out all these gorgeous colours.
After drying off and warming up we set off to visit the area around Ocean Studios which was the location of Illuminate.
Like lots of things this event has been postponed a few times.
Many of the illuminations were similar to previous years but a new one was a fabulous, luminescent squid called Bobby Dazzler by Kate Crawford and Beth Munro. Visitors were invited to add embelishment to Bobby with fingertips dabbed in luminescent paint.
Outside we could write on a graffiti wall. My rookie error was to seek out a clear piece of wall to advertise this blog without checking the appropriateness of the surrounding marks.
Also new to Illuminate were the thousands of bugs and moths fluttering in the breeze to remind us that we must protect biodiversity and species around the world. There was also the luxury of a cafe serving decent quality late night coffee, always a bonus!
The architecture of the Grade 1 listed buildings lends added texture to projected videos.
And although I failed to record a video the musical pipes and interactive lights were fascinating. Although not particularly musical in our hands.
Returning just for a final comment and illumination to our sunset swim. Here I am wearing my night swimming hat which was a birthday gift last week.
Sunbay morning walk. Meeting and natterings with morning swimmers whilst we were snug and warm in the many layers that are required for an early morning dog walk. Knowing full well that this bright and beautiful morning will progress to an equally bright and beautiful sunset which is when we will plunge into the chilly waters of Firestone Bay for our weekend swim.
I suspect there was a frost this morning, the autumn leaves on the pavements looked a bit ravaged and damp when we set off. They still held a myriad of messages for the dogs to sniff and respond to, which slowed us down a good bit. As did searching for an autumn coloured dog poo ( or two) in the pile of leaves that was chosen for the morning elimination.
There is a new character hanging around in our changing area, taking in the sun while straddling a nail and a limpet shell.
Up early and boosted,plus a flu injection. A very good way to start my day. A slightly unusual location of a football club with the bonus of watching 15 or so very small footballers taking practice shots and fitness stretches ready for a big match. I had forgotten the earnestness that 10 year old boys dedicate to their favourite sport. A little blog with gratitude for research and the NHS.
A deliberately late blog today because we were off on a rug buying adventure and I knew that there would be some gorgeous colours to share. Rug shopping can also be a great experience for the nose if you shop in the right places. Really a rug department that only sells natural fibres is the absolute best. Liberty of London has the best smelling rug department that I know. There are smells gathered there that have travelled from all over the world. Closer to home, currently, is the rug department of Trago Mills. Possibly the most eccentric shopping experience Britain has to offer. Never the less their rug department is a close second to Liberty for fragrance and choice of rug.
We were seeking a rug the colour of a winter sea. It has been a quest for the last few months.
Not feeling particularly hopeful amongst all these gorgeous but unsealike colours we dug through a pile of rugs from India and found this gorgeous chap.
Sea-like in both colour and texture and made of jute and cotton and, as we discovered, a perfect place for excitable dogs.
Just a little blog today about the joys of an early morning start, and another unexpected morning joy.
Starting the day early with a cup of coffee, the sunrise and a natter with swimming friends at Tranquility Bay. Even though this was officially a dog walk and not a ‘ bobbing’ session.
They were not averse to some morning basking. It is going to be a beautiful day.
My day got a little more complex soon after this when I took the car, an automatic, to have some body work done and the courtesy car had one of these!
Both feet doing something while I drive is quite a novelty.A bit of driving round early morning, empty car parks soon put my driving skills back into the manual world. And the word novelty allows me to add a small serving of another fairly unique experience of the past weekend.
I suppose Covid has altered the way hotels can serve breakfast. My inner child was properly thrilled to have a one person serving of breakfast cereal. A treat that only occured very rarely when I was an actual child and pretty rarely when I had actual children.
Mornings are definitely perked up by coffee and individual cereal packets. Not so much by a manual gear box.
This past weekend was the culmination of two and a half months of Covid Cultural Catch Up. From September through to mid November we’ve done a curious mix of things that have been postponed and rebooked during the periods of lockdown and other sociatal restrictions. We should have been in Studland Bay in November 2020. Things have been rescheduled quite randomly but serendipity made our rebooked visit to Studland more interesting because on this occasion we could hook up with family members not seen for years. An unexpected treat.
I am always a sucker for a row of beach huts. The ones above at Knoll Beach were not really very photogenic, neither so pristine that they were perfect or so decrepit that they were wistfully vintage. Awkwardly they were just a bit shambolic, Fixed up with a variety of measures to help them withstand the storms of winter. Not being a proper photographer is wonderfully freeing. To get this image I have shamelessly ramped up the saturations and then selectively desaturated anything that wasn’t a warm yellow/orange. Giving this row of beachside huts a uniformity they dont really have.
All this is really a preamble before I admit that I didn’t research the area of Studland Bay or Swanage at all before we arrived there on Saturday. Not my normal behaviour at all. So we arrived with no plans beyond having some good beach walks and to eat fish wherever possible. I know that in an area of such outstanding natural beauty and fascinating history my lack of pre-visit research is a heinous crime, but sometimes a beach( and some fish) is all you need!
Oh the beach is so seductive, sand like soft brown sugar and so many shells and rocks to look at.
In reality we never strayed far from the beach. Driftwood here is bleached and white, not something we normally see on our local Devon or Cornwall coast.
White leaves also stand out on the autumn leaf-fall on the edges of the beach.
A global direction board on the beach reminded us of how far away some of our loved ones are.
Thankfully there was always coffee and baked goods to raise the spirits and recharge our beach walking legs…
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