From one estuary to another

You probably know how much I love living on the estuary (except when the wind is blowing sand in my face, of course!).

So it was really lovely to drive across country to visit an east coast estuary last weekend. Especially on such a glorious day.

We don't have exciting things like old lighthouses in our estuary, but then we do have islands you can walk out to when the tide is out. So I think we're all square...

A Day Out: Spurn Point

I had a lovely trip at the weekend; I managed to get to Spurn Point to see Alice Fox's Textures of Spurn exhibition.  It was a bit of a trek but so worth it!  Alice has been artist-in-residence on Spurn Point for the last 6 months and has created some beautiful work, do take a look at her blog to see some of the work and also the dates and venues for the exhibition tour, it's well worth a visit if you can.

Alice used the a room in the lighthouse as her studio during the residency, what a fantastically atmospheric studio it must have been.  The lighthouse is not normally open to the public so it was an extra treat to see her work displayed in there, I've never been in a real lighthouse before!  There were a lot of steps...

You can just see the back of one of her pieces here; there are much better pictures on her blog.  I was distracted by the spiral of the stairs and the ceiling.

As you can see the weather was absolutely glorious, so the point didn't quite have the atmosphere that I expected.  But I really shouldn't complain, it made for a lovely day out.  Of course I took loads of photos, here are just a few...

Time off

I've been taking some time off, time off from blogging, time off from making, mulling over the direction I want to take for the final year of my degree (and doing a bit of long overdue decorating!).  Still not sure yet but I have the germ of an idea, a starting point, we shall see where it leads.

We've had gorgeous weather this last week or so.  It looks as though today might have been the last of the really nice days, so I'm glad we took advantage of it and went for a walk along the beach this morning.  It's something I don't do nearly as often as I should.

I love the 'wideness' of the estuary landscape, and the sheer quantity of open sky.  Mountains are beautiful too, but the way they block out the sky makes me feel a little hemmed in.

We met someone on our walk... there is a natterjack toad reserve fenced off on the beach but I've never actually met one before...

...he didn't stay long...

Looking back the way we'd come...

Being so shallow for such a long way out, and being estuary of course rather than 'proper' sea, our beach is not much good for beachcombing.  But today there were piles of tiny pink and white shells collected in the sand ripples, looking a little like sugar sprinkles on a cake.

Now I have some tiles to grout and some decisions to make...