Beach heart pebbles for Valentines Day

I've been collecting heart shaped pebbles from the beach for a long time, and have finally decided how to embellish them!

Each one is (of course!) different in shape and size, and to be honest some are "heartier" than others - but I'm having great fun prettying them up.

As it's nearly Valentine's Day it seemed right to try to make pebbles sexy, so I've gone for a lacing effect knitted stitch, like corset lacing!

I've started to add them to folksy and etsy and will continue to add more as I knit them!

Virtual Fossil Hunt!

Many of you know that fossil hunting is pretty much on the daily agenda here, so I thought I'd show how easy it is (not!). The first photo shows where we're going. This is the view from the garden fence, the exposed shingle at low tide is the best place to hunt. It's only a high low tide today, not a low low tide when more shingle is exposed. Before we moved here I didn't even know that the tides varied, other than low and high, but today's low tide is only 1.4m as opposed to 2.5m later in the month.

Here we are! Now it's *just* a case of eyeballing the shingle, best done from an undignified squat! We're looking for black fossil sharks teeth in a bed of black shingle. Easy peasy. When I spotted the first one I took a photo of it as I saw it, before I moved anything, but first I'll show you what you're looking for:

Now it's your turn to look for it! (You can enlarge the photo by clicking on it)

Got it yet? Same view, closer in:

It takes a while to get your eye in, as you can imagine. What usually catches my eye is the extreme sharpness or the straight edge. On the better examples there is a Y shaped root but we didn't find any like that today. If you can find the next one I'll be impressed! Here's what you're looking for:

And here's where I looked:

The fossil is towards the bottom, centre, in the photo above. Look for the round orange pebble

Spot it now?

In the next photo there is "something" pretty much in the centre. I don't know what it is, but it has regular lines that make me think it is a fossil rather than just a stone. I don't know though, do you?

 So these were today's finds. Not a huge crop, but we weren't out long, maybe half an hour.

Here's our total haul (so far), we moved here on March 1st but already had 4 of the 78 (!!) from an earlier hunt

These two are my favourites. The bigger one is - well - big! It shows the Y shape I mentioned earlier, that's the easiest thing to spot. The other one is ridiculously tiny, I don't know how I saw it!

We found the next fossil on our previous beach between Pett Level and Fairlight last year. The area was a river bed, and these are casts of tracks made by crustaceans (I think!)

We've also hunted at Folkestone, it's HORRIBLE underfoot, clambering over slippery boulders, but we persevered. Apparently the hunting is better if you work right at the cliff, but I'm not keen on danger! We found casts of ammonites and bits of ammonites:

 but my goodness we found lots!

On another day at our local beach MrNifty found this excellent piece of fossil wood embedded in a stone. It started to fall apart as soon as it dried, so I soaked it in yarn stiffener! did the job, probably not the obvious solution if you're not a knitter.

Last but not least - remember how paltry my seaglass collection was when last I showed you? 

It's grown!

Getting to know our new home

This is our walk home from town - what's not to love?

Our bungalow can't be seen from here, but it's to the right of the few houses you can see at the top of the cliff.

And here is the view from the garden fence. We went back down to the beach after lunch and walked away from town, towards Reculver. We disturbed several turnstones, they're incredibly well camouflaged against the shingle, you don't usually see them until they move unless they're in the water, like this little chap.

How many can you spot below? (click the picture to enlarge it)

We walked till we saw Reculver Towers then decided it was teatime! 

Hastings Pirate Day

On Sunday, Hastings beach was the site for a Guinness Book of Records Challenge for the largest gathering of pirates and Mr Nifty and I were there! Early of course, I can never be late...that explains why it looks as if it's a pretty poor challenge in this pic. I'd just put my trusty cutlass down, which is just as well. I realised later that I'd been holding it as if it was a cup of tea, by the "handle" - which turned out to not be the correct way.

the beach slowly starting to fill up...

and more...

and more...

 The finale was a display by the Red Arrows 

but we escaped the madding crowds and went home to watch from our own (slightly less crowded) beach!

Thanks for a great day out - and well done to each and every one of the 14,231 pirates - we're back as the record holders!

A night out for the camera

  

Most days we walk on the beach at low tide, we like scrambling amongst the rock pools. Friday, though, we  got the timings wrong and walked at high tide when it looks like this.

On Saturday, I couldn't find the camera. We looked in all the usual places, and the silly ones too (how many of you have found unlikely lost objects in the fridge?)

Eventually we realised it must have fallen from my pocket the evening before - after which it had rained virtually all night, not to mention the tide turning. Nonetheless we decided to retrace our steps - and found it!

Who'd have thought? I opened the very soggy case to find a fair bit of sand which must have been washed in by the waves, but to my surprise the camera turned on and showed me the photos on the card. A night drying out on paper towels, and it is pretty much back to normal - as shown by the photo above, taken Sunday morning from the clifftop path.

Hurray for living out in the sticks! 

Rock of Ages

Walking under the cliffs at the aptly named Cliff End

I came across a strange rock:

The "lacework" is part of the rock, it's not seaweed lying on top. This area was once a flooded forest, so I'm choosing to believe that the lacework are fossilized roots, it certainly looks like it.

Weird, isn't it?

Our new neighbourhood

Well, we've finally moved, the computer is back up and running and I've even started knitting again. Time to catch up, and as always you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them:

On Sunday (the day before we officially moved to Pett Level) we walked from Pett to Winchelsea along the Royal Military Canal, built way back when to defend the UK from Napolean Bonaparte. It was a glorious spring day with a brisk breeze - we were putting layers on and taking them off again all day!


The end is in sight - can you see the towers of Winchelsea Strand Gate on the horizon in the photo below? Years ago I took a series of photos starting here for my first website celebrating the Lone Pine Club books by Malcolm Saville. I should probably retake them now I have a better camera, they're a bit washed out!


The photo below is taken from the Strand Gate at Winchelsea, looking back across the canal and marshes to the sea. We had a quick pint in a pub garden, then headed back down the hill again to find the coast.


Yes, it's spring - lots of proud mums around!


The tide was out - we were very pleased to see so much sand, we'd thought we'd moved to a mostly shingly beach!


Nearly there (below). In the distance you can see Cliff End which is where we will leave the beach and turn right to head for our new home. Apparently there are many fossils to be discovered here at low tide, but we will have to time it correctly - it's 3 miles before the cliffs can be ascended again and I'm not that good a swimmer. Certainly not for today, at the end of a five mile walk.


One last photo... I was entranced by the beautiful designs (and I use the word deliberately) that the sea has drawn in the sand - isn't it wonderful?