The first virtual Smooth Pebble Club beach outing!
Join me on my morning walk with Twigs to see what the sea has revealed on the beach today. Then join us for a cup of tea and a catch up about life :)
Hi Everyone. I hope you’re doing well!
In the UK it’s full on Spring now and I can’t quite believe it’s almost May. I think this sudden time jump can be put down to the fact I started a new job a month ago and this first month has felt like a week, so my brain is still in March.
Thanks for joining me for this morning walk! I’m making the most of this quiet time on the beach, early in the morning, as the first of May marks the start of the period in which dogs aren’t allowed on the majority of the beach until October, and whilst most of us dog walkers slightly ignore this rule when we’re out so early in the morning (before tourists arrive) it does limit our freedom to roam a little as I really don’t want to be lumped with the £500 fine. And not to mention, with the arrival of the tourists comes the arrival of litter … everywhere. It spoils the experience of a gentle walk along the beach looking for nice things when you’re surrounded by Burger King wrappers and Stella Bottles…
Anyway, let’s get beachlarking - please enjoy the soundtrack of the seaside, an impatient dog and me, your unrealiable tour guide, trying to guess what things are.
P.S. EXCUSE MY GROSS NAIL BITTEN FINGERS.
First, let’s get you into the right headspace. Watch this short video to orientate yourself:
Now close your eyes and imagine the swarm of seagulls and the distant sound of an ambulance siren, right you’re here now, on Brighton beach … let’s go search for cool things…
First up -
A Glass Bead?
After a closer look, if it is a bead is has a Y-shaped bore … It’s definitely a bore, rather than a crack so hopefully a bead.
A flint tool?
A did some research and it has the characteristics of flint tools, but obviously smoothed down thanks to the sea. Below are some images of flint tools that have a similar appearance to the piece I found. It definitely has a “bulb of percussion” and ripples in the right places to be a human man tool - but I’m not sure how to confirm it.
I’ve been keeping a keener eye out for interesting flints and pebbles, ones that I usually take for granted, on the beach these days. I was inspired to look more carefully after I watched an episode of “Fake or Fortune” where they were trying to determine if a sculpture found in a garden was a Henry Moore sculpture. Throughout the program, they discussed Henry Moore’s work and showed some of his vast collection of flints and stones that inspired his sculptural work. He was drawn to flints that had been smoothed down and resembled figures or in some places bones - a lot looked like pelvis bones to me. Here’s a photo of some of the flints he collected.
“According to the filmmaker John Read, Moore liked to ‘shut himself away here, rummaging around, pondering and exploring’ his collection of bones, shells and flint stones, the shapes of which often served as starting points for Moore’s sculptures. The curator Alan Wilkinson asserted in 1987 that the maquette for Archer was inspired by his collection of flint stones, and in particular the way in which some of the stone fragments balanced on three points.”
Anyway it’s made me look closer! I started to realise that some of the more angular flints, with their smoothed down edges, are perfect reference for stylised boulders. I’ve started my own Henry Moore inspired collection of flints for future inspiration … see some here:
A pretty cross section
… and also a scarily accurate representation of what it’s like to have a conversation with me when I get distracted by a cute dog, a bird, a squirrel, a pretty rock or piece of seaglass.
And one from the other week:
Soap Stones
There’s a type of pebble on the beach that smooths down the best in your pocket that I’ve started calling “soap stones”. They have a soft, almost velvety-suede feel to them and tend to get a glassy-polish just by being tumbled around in your pocket with others stones. Matt said I must be so tired all the time because all my pockets are full of stones, and he keeps finding little piles of pebbles around his flat from where I sit down and some fall out ahahah.
Fossils
I’m learning that porous black pebbles could be fossils, even though I often can’t tell what they are fossils of.
The ones I have been able to decipher are all teeth of whales and dolphins. Here’s a little tooth I found last month (the dolphin teeth are often longer and more slender than this):
Teenage Mutant Ninja … Pebble
Please say you can see the resemblance! Also, look at my lovely long nail last week before I bit it off because it was too long and stressing me out ahahha.
And here comes our rock finding assistant and Smooth Pebble Club secretary …
… she likes to curl up at your feet when she returns with the ball so often covers up anything you’re looking at - here a glowing piece of sea glass:
She’s not the best option for the club secretary because she doesn’t really have a passion for pebbles, and rather prefers sand. Here she is when the tide is low and the sand exposed:
Low tide invasion
Twigs proved that sand can be interesting too recently, when during this low tide there was an invasion of hundreds of what initially looked like eggs, but I was like what creature in the UK seas has eggs like these!? They were brittle and when touched cracked like eggs but were strange and hairy looking too … very alien like. Anyway they were everywhere and after some investigation, I found out they were Dead Sea Potatoes and the name made me very happy.
They are a type of sea urchin that burrows in the sand and apparently these mass strandings of them happen in spring when they come together to breed.
I’m always hopeful on these low tides that I’ll see some hermit crabs … I’ve seen them in the past and they are my favourite - so cute!
Let’s pause and take in our beach surroundings for a moment before we conclude our walk …
A reminder to club members that the evenings are getting longer and warmer, and you’re encouraged to host your own beach outings later in the day too. Yesterday I grabbed a blanket after work and took my book down to the beach to enjoy the longer, slightly warmer evenings. The sun doesn’t set until 8pm now so I’m trying to soak up as much of it as I can after I’ve finished my day’s work.
You have now concluded your Smooth Pebble Club beach outing.
Please now join us for a hot cup of tea and a good catch up …
I frequently find myself longing to be back in nature a bit more than I am … I think growing up in the countryside does that to your soul, even when you love the busyness and feel of living in a city. I’m glad Brighton & Hove is a city on a smaller scale, and that the openness of the large expanse of ocean on our doorsteps, and The Downs wrapping around us, means that nature is all around us, and I still very much get the sense of being able to breathe…
(Pause, sidebar - after writing this above passage this morning I just now saw an instagram post from an account I really like and look … based on my birth month - souls that need space to breathe! ahaha)
… BUT I am very excited for a fast-approaching trip I’m taking in May - a 5 day writing retreat, with a heavy focus on nature and relaxing alongside writing and creativity. 5 days in a beautiful house, on a river, surrounded by some of my favourite landscapes with a group of creative women and guest speakers, where I get to go wild swimming, try my best at yoga and eat hearty home-cooked meals that will be made for us. And with the added bonus that my mom will be joining me! I am so looking forward to it and hoping it gives me the confidence, and push, to forge forward with writing my novel.
As mentioned at the start of this post I started a new job a month ago, and am now a Production Designer at Aardman on a very exciting project that I can’t say anything about. Production Designer really is a dream title and to have it at a place as legendary as Aardman is quite frankly mind-blowing.
I wasn’t actively searching for PD jobs because, as always, I didn’t think I had a chance in hell of getting one (when will I learn to believe in myself!?), but was very lucky to be recommended for this role by a friend (who is also one of my creative heroes) and here we are. So it’s all arrived rather suddenly, out of the blue, a lovely surprise and I’m heads down working away trying to create some magic with some VERY VERY talented humans.
And finally, as the year seems to be speeding away with us, I just wanted to mention that I’ll be an Annecy this year for the first time, with my pal Sarah aka @ magicalnarwhal on instagram. Let me know if you’ll be attending, as I’d love to say hi to you if I see you around.
Also, if anyone’s been to Annecy before, Sarah and I would love advice on how best to use the ticketing system to use up our daily reservation allowances to actually get into things - it’s all very vague online and we’d love some Annecy-past-attendees expert advice, so please do reach out ahaha. AND if any of you can get this seemingly outgoing anti-social-so-and-so into any mega cool parties, let me know ahahahahah.
Speak soon,
Izzy x