We are very lucky in Northern Ireland.
We are very lucky in Northern Ireland. If we don't live by the sea, we are never too far away for a decent day trip. Of course, we might not have the weather all the time, but one thing we do well, is we just get on with it. In the recent half-term holiday, I have seen families picnicking and making sandcastles either side of the storms. It's great to get out in nature, it's good for our mood, our immune system and for our fitness.
Being by the sea energises me.
It shakes off any tiredness, invigorates my senses and quietens my mind. I can wake up early and head straight to the beach, for a pre-work walk, I can take a more leisurely ramble along the coastal path of an evening, or I can be out by the sea anytime in between. I love looking at the natural light, the colours, the cloud formations. I stop my 10-year-old regularly and enthuse about the colours around us, so much so that he imitates me. The greens and blues! Our wonderful coast!
I walk, I breathe in the fresh air and I look around me. I see things which belong, and things which don't. My eyes have become accustomed to spotting the unusual amongst the familiar colours and shapes of our shores. I started noticing sea-glass pebbles; small pieces of glass, smoothed and shaped by decades in the sea. Then, I would find ceramic pieces, also smoothed by the tumbling seas. I became fascinated by the beauty of these imposters and there began my beachcombing in earnest.
I use sea-glass and sea-pottery creatively.
I mostly make pictures of people and animals, sometimes I can pick up a piece of sea-glass and be sure it's a head, or a pottery piece and know it will be a dress. Porcelain cup handles become dogs' tails, clay pipe stems become trousers, bottle necks become lighthouses. The sea has allowed me to be creative and has provided me with tides of jigsaw pieces. Each piece is unique. I love the thrill of finding vintage and rare sea glass & pottery, researching the history, if I can. I know that turquoise glass is rarer than cobalt blue, that black glass is rarely black...and if it's blackcurrant black, then that's treasure! Red seaglass sometimes comes from ships' lights, pink sea glass often comes from cheap dinnerware, mass-produced during the Great Depression era. I've found sea-smoothed ceramic fragments of Hartley's marmalade jars from the Aintree factory, pre- WW1 telegraph pole ceramic insulators, Victorian bottle stoppers, Codd marbles and Cornishware-range pottery, which I remember from my great-grandmother's tableware.
It's fascinating stuff.
Sea-glass & sea pottery are, of course, vintage rubbish in our sea.
The throwaways from picnics of old, from shipwrecks & overboards and from glassworks and potteries, built along the banks of the Lagan in the late 18th century. Belfast wasn't just famous for linen and shipbuilding. A glassworks, built in 1784 by John Smylie, was the largest in Great Britain and Ireland. At this time, common practice was to dispose of waste glass into the sea.
Scour any beach these days and you come across modern pollution. Our sands harbour large quantities of microplastics, pollutants wash in with tides and unfortunately new litter also heads out to sea. Rubbish gets discarded, or blown into waterways from streets, from landfills, from sewer pipes and eventually ends up in the oceans. I have seen hundreds of plastic cotton bud stems on a small patch of beach, dental picks, sanitary products, razor blades, baby wipes and so on. My personal bugbear is finding loops & hoops, fishing line/net and balloons. These are devastating for our wildlife and often unnecessary. Thankfully balloon releases are becoming increasingly stigmatised, with many alternatives now out there. Sadly, last year I came across a seal in the tideline. Strangled by embedded fishing line, there was no doubt it was a prolonged, painful death. We've probably all seen how invisible, insidious microplastics are ingested by marine life and have entered our food chain. So, sometimes I will just concentrate on litter-picking when I'm by the sea. It's nice to go with someone else and you'd be amazed at the conversation starter it has proven to be. Small steps can make a big difference and it feels good to give something back.
In the strangest year we've possibly had, connecting with nature can help shore up our mental health. No pun intended.
Do you remember when two orcas came up into Strangford Lough? It was at a time we couldn't leave the house, except to exercise (how very dare they!) Collectively there was a real buzz of excitement. We wanted to protect them, to help them with safe passage back out into deeper waters and maybe to find out a bit more about these two bulls and their back-story. Connections with our seas don't need to be so grand though. You can go and look in a rock pool and find life. Beadlet anemones are ten a penny, you'll not miss them. It's captivating to watch them open up as the tide comes in, using their tentacles to sting and trap passing prey. I've seen one eat a moon jellyfish; I've yet to see one eat a crab, so I'm still watching them. My youngest and I like to look for sea slugs and we can be found, bums in air, peering into pools watching for any subtle bubbles. Maybe there's a better way?
Above water, we watch sandpipers picking at insects and biofilm on the sand, hooded crows dropping periwinkles from a height, to crack the shell and eat the animal, black guillemots returning from the sea in spring, for the breeding season. There are free shore guides you can borrow from Citizen Sea, NI's first boat-based environmental charity. From these, you can identify different animals and plants around our coast. I've enjoyed looking at the variety of seaweed we have in NI. I know my eggwrack from my oarweed, that furbellows is the largest seaweed in Europe and although we can cook with it, I have yet to try and have stuck with dulse. I have developed a fascination for holdfasts, which is the root-like structure attaching the seaweed to rock, or the seabed. The name makes perfect sense. It's a beautiful thing. I think that taking the time to learn or understand something gives it value.
When we value something, we want to look after it.
There's probably a collective noun for beachcombers. Maybe a neckache of beachcombers, or a wave of. Undeniably, there's a huge element of mindfulness in beachcombing and being by the sea. You are outside and connected with nature; feeling the weather, listening , looking and focusing on one task, without distractions if you're lucky. No two days by the sea are the same and it's never tedious.
See you at the beach.
You can follow Aileen's journey at facebook.com/WhatTheSeaSaw and instagram.com/whattheseasaw . Check out her fabulous shop at etsy.com/uk/shop/WhatTheSeaSaw . Just in time for Christmas!