beach memories

I spent yesterday afternoon on the beach with my sister her partner, her son (11) and my youngest son (11). it is strange isn't it when you are in a place that is very familiar and yet new. the beach in question was a place we visited a lot when we were children in the 1970's. I now live about 7 minutes walk away. we have had family in the area for many, many years.

For all sorts of reasons the place made a huge impact on me when I was a child (around age 11).

I made it my home (permanently about 15 years ago) after time in sussex (brighton), hampshire, france, london. my sister still lives in the area we went to school, sussex. I have the feeling that she will also move down sometime in the future.

it was a lovely day the sun was warm sitting on the beach brought back many memories of days past. our children were happy to play on the beach together mixing the new (to them) with the familiar (to us).

both photos were taken 11/04/2010

lucky

every now and again I find myself getting stressed with stuff (especially, but not solely with work) and have to make a concerted effort to get down to the beach. so on saturday after a good day, even considering I had just watched my favourite professional rugby team loose. I remembered that I hadn't see the sea for a while even though I live less than a mile from the ocean and that I had been running around after myself for a few days being very unproductive. 

so I just took a tiny detour on the drive home to spend some time at the beach at sunset. It doesn't take much to make me realise just how lucky I am to live where I do.

a short long day >>

it has been a funny day. a day that I had purposely set aside to do very little. yesterday was a busy (even an emotional day) as a couple of people I have worked with for many years left for pastures new. it was also the day when I managed to get myself a new (additional) role in creative and media education. all I really did today was play with my new blackberry (delivered this morning) so far it is an improvement on my previous blackberry (now given to my eldest son). trouble is now that I am even more easily contacted which is a good thing for the most part except for those annoying calls from amongst others the alliance & leicester (that's a whole different story) but their customer service personal are not my favourite people at the moment. I watched the tour de france on the TV. tomorrow I am off to the beach things are not bad at the moment, just re-grouping a bit.

as another moan I am really fed up with the way apple have dealt with the non-working battery for my less than six month old macbook. it seems that through the couple of different agents involved in sourcing a whole bunch of apple computers at work are all blaming each other and refusing to accept responsibility for the 'care' so in short I have just gone ahead and ordered and paid for a new battery direct, in the hope that I will get it refunded. such a shame that a great piece of very necessary kit currently can only be used plugged in to the mains. oh well there are plenty of more important things to get worried about than a battery. I am rather tired and rambling a bit too much i'll stop.

not sure why? been thinking gliders?

I am not really sure why, perhaps it is because the last 3 days have been very busy. even with a little tension as well as emotion for me. but today as I sat down and relaxed I remembered a day in the early summer some 30 years ago when I was at the beach on a very sunny day, not more than a mile from where I now live. playing as a teenager with a model glider from a company based in bend, oregon, USA. I can't remember the name of the manufacturer (I would be more than happy if someone could add a comment if they know of a model plane maker from there). any way I managed to get the smallish glider in to a rising thermal, just with a lucky throw. the glider then circled above the beach with a probably more than a hundred people watching. it stayed airborne for more than 20 minutes before it disappeared out to sea never to be seen again. I remember in my glorious naivety thinking that I must have broken a world record. I even asked strangers to give me written statements to witness that they had seen it happen! I then sent all the information to the company fully expecting them to get back to me with some kind of reward or prize, well they never did. yes I really was that naive. any way it is funny how things disappear from ones thoughts only to return at the strangest times.

the pictures have no relation to the story. I just liked them!!

beach time

pleased that orange did deliver my replacement blackberry as promised on saturday, we ventured to the beach on sunday. lucky as we are to live in cornwall, so close to so many amazing beaches we often take for granted. the normal camera I take to the beach is off with friend and collegue on the inca trial in peru. so I used the phone to take a few pictures yesterday it's not bad for a phone. I know the picture here is a bit obvious but I like the place the sand and the sea meet. even managed a surf, can't complain.

>> go skateboarding day 2007

tomorrow (thursday 21.06.07) is go-skateboarding-day-2007 and all across the world skaters of all types and ages will be going skating. I am no longer part of the brighton skate scene as I moved to cornwall years ago my son gabes is. I am sure that during the day he will be going skateboarding.


as part of the event the vans skateboard team will be at the west pier brighton around 2pm. now the reason I am interested in the vans team is that they have some old school skaters as well as contemporary skaters, I will always consider myself old school, I first went skating in the 70's and that was in brighton then later london. since moving to cornwall the skate possibilities stopped as the old school skateboard parks became derelict, and generally we have less tarmac, and concrete down here, so the beach becomes the way to go and surfing the real deal.
however more recently some repairs and rebuilding has happened and I now have some good skate parks close by, and good friend and surf98 colleague moby is the man for them (check his surf pictures on the surf98 site).
anyway to add to the skateboard day I thought this video made in brighton might be worth a look.

surf blogs >> I have been looking at

really like this blog sissyfish I have checked it a few times over the last few weeks and I really find it interesting and calming, run by chum from portland, oregon, us. a painter, illustrator and scribe holed up in the pacific northwest. hopelessy addicted to sliding on frigid waters and "talking story." (his words) I can relate to that.

another site I like to check is surfysurfy, especially when they post pictures of boards like the one below.
a flextail quad 'mashup' shaped by Ian Zamora and Dennis Kane.
just a couple of the many really interesting takes on when the world of surfing and the internet collide. I have more for another day.

just two >> took many more

yes I know I said I would not update for a couple of days but I was drawn to add just two pictures taken today at the beach, just because I liked them, still no real blog until tuesday.

stone castles in cornwall | dg may 2007

tide line | dg may 2007

two things >> one very achey man

I did two things today

1, I played in a game of rugby parents (I was one) versus the team (children, ben was one) I hurt a lot now but I am very glad that I played I even scored a try, and protected my shoulder with my face! after the game the royal navy air sea rescue helicopter visited publicity / recruitment that sort of thing.














2, I went to the 'favourite beach' where I realised that the grasses I love and grow in my garden are the same grasses that grow on that beach. I had never noticed it before and I have been to that particular place / beach probably many hundreds of time since I was a small child.

france >> the french >> design

really is just a short post today as the pictures will hopefully talk for themselves. recently I was in a well know discount store in our city and I was very tempted to but for £3.99 a printing set that was french designed, (made in china I expect).
it had all the alphabet and most associated symbols and a kind of composing stick to place rubber movable type in order to create your custom made personal or business letter head. self load as far as ink as each time you put in back in its self contained holder it would reload the letters. a bit like the ones you can get in most stationers like the one (left) but its packaged in french. so to my eyes it looked cool.

back to the reason for this post I received a very welcome letter this morning from france nothing that unusual but it was from a place in france that we are planning to visit and stay (with my faamily). I noticed the use of a hand stamp as well as the signature of the camp-site owner.
I really liked and thought I should have bought the £3.99 french printing set it had rubber pictures/graphics as well, I bet if I go back it will have sold out.

I just thought I would share the letter stamp and the post mark as I like that too! in case you are worried we I do not go caravanning! we are taking two tents.

john bull printing set
rubber stamps
french postmarks

at the beach >> looking down

as much as I look up when I walk around towns and cities I also look down at the beach , not just to avoid the (dog mess), have to say I have in recent years that is much less of a problem than it used to be.
you see the most amazing things. this was just one day in late winter at a beach very near where I live in cornwall.

the last of the winter storms had brought up a lot of kelp as well as man-made stuff.
as is clear much of the material is harmful and will take years to breakdown.
I do like the way the colours work but feel guilty for it.

any way I thought I would share the pictures.
for more information about what can be done to help with keeping our beaches clean
check some of these links.

http://www.sas.org.uk/pr/
http://www.surfrider.org
http://www.mcga.gov.uk/
http://www.satobsys.co.uk/CSeas/

skateboards >> skimboards

after yesterdays post and with the continued great weather in cornwall I started the thinking of the beach and all things summer. it has been rather poor for surf over the last few weeks especially on the south coast so I though it must be skimboard time!! after all sunny evenings a flat sea not that many visitors yet, and the beach only an 8 minutes walk away!! I thought about it around midday carried on thinking about it while trying to explain to a group of over hot students how to make a an animated flash banner to insert into the dreamweaver created website, in the early afternoon. while also replanning a room in my head and trying to remember if I was collecting ben from the child minder?

by the end of the day I had completely forgotten my skimboarding idea, when I did get home I had that horrid feeling that I had forgotten something, (you like left something on a train or not locked the house) it wasn't ben he was already home with carol, it wasn't work related had my laptop and layout paper (more drawing tonight) . I had my blackberry, filofax, pencil & memory sticks, so not lost of left anything.

oh well I thought I have a cup of coffee while carol and ben went off shopping. more phone calls and another coffee then it came back to be 'skimboard time', by then it was getting a bit late and it would probably be cold and any more excuses, oh yes I could take a photo of it and put it on here.

oooppps! I have just used a list even with a photo as an excuse for not doing something! maybe tomorrow (no, I have a meeting) probably the weekend then?