flotsam and jetsam

Over the weekend the weather behaved much better than recently and we had sunshine, hooray!  We went for a lovely walk along the boulder bank by the sea and were supplied with a fresh breeze and crashing waves, so all very invigorating.  I decided to collect bits of coloured plastic, instead of the usual driftwood and pebbles and soon my little girl got in on the act and found bits for me too.  she was much better at it than me.

We managed to find almost a whole spectrum of colours, and all sorts of items, pegs, a bouncy ball, a hair tie and a nasty brown flip-flop amongst other things.  I was going to chart the colours on my new colour-map for the computer, but as yet haven't, quite.
I am not sure what I will do with them, probably leave them around to gather dust and then chuck them away.

beach walk

This morning we went to the rocky beach, guaranteed to get me all excited about drift wood and large boulders I would like in my garden, but am not allowed to take ( and are too heavy to pick up).  I got some small nice shape bits of driftwood to paint pictures on, which will sit in the back of the car for a few months before we throw them out.  The dog had a good sniff around too.

 someone had built a really nice driftwood tepee with rocks around the base, must have taken them hours.

 Hills, rocks and driftwood

My husband is from a small island, so he likes the sea.

Beautiful beach and scenery, nice warm sunshine, a good way to start the day.

cloudy, rainy, windy, sunny day

sometimes you just need to get out of the house and get some fresh air and oxygen in your blood.  This usually entails dragging the children out kicking and screaming to some local area of natural beauty.  After about five minutes at said "torture area of natural beauty"  they are very happy and never want to leave.  And my husband and I are left shivering in the sand, wind etc.  

 this day was no different, the weather could not decide what to do, it was cold and windy, it was almost sunny, then it warmed up considerably and poured with rain.

 consequently there were a good range of cloud shapes, forms and colours.

Beach creations, blue sky

 This wasn't from today, but today was as beautiful of this in our sunny home town.  Actually I have been painting the railings on the deck today and the kids have been banished to the garden to play.  After some fear and trepidation at being sent away from the TV and the computer, they took some blankets, some sewing, a camera and some other stuff into the garden and set up some activities and spent the whole day outside, and came in full of beans just as the sun sunk low and it started to get cold. 

 Its nice to go to the beach and see what other people have been up to with driftwood and rocks

 their always seems to be a few of the same idea, different interpretation, which I like, especially if you go to the beach on consecutive days and ideas change and morph and grow.  We turned up at the beach a few weeks ago and walked along to find these driftwood shapes ( all above ).  So my children decided to make a house.

 They did it all themselves while I sat on the rocks looking for heart-shaped stones.

 Its always nice when they are inspired without any encouragement.

 My little girl has a dolly called Lucy, and we have made Duct-Tape dummies in the past, so she decided that she should make one for her dolly, so she could use to help make clothes for Lucy.  How very sweet It is finished with a mini coat hanger stuck in the top to hang it up.

 I have been trying to dry out the timber railings on the deck so I could paint them.  It has rained a lot and also it is winter, so there is lots of condensation or frost in the morning.  We have put cling-film over the rails at night so they don't get any wetter.  So in the morning all these beautiful dew-drops were sparkling  on the railings

 And the blue sky is reflecting in some of the droplets. how lovely

Its a mixed bag today