I Must Down to the Seas Again ....

...to the lonely sea and the sky... (John Masefield) I've been pining for the sea for quite a few weeks now - growing up in land locked Leeds I never realised how wonderful living by the sea would be - Then we moved to Northumberland - and lived near the sea- it was a liberating feeling of spaciousness - sometimes of desolation and always of tranquility and peace. I have found walking on the beach to be one of life's greatest pleasures and when we moved back in land I found I missed it more than I ever could of imagined...

We took a van trip to South Gare Redcar - there were no tall ships just huger tankers - it was a wee bit grey for a July day but we managed to miss the rain and had a lovely uninterrupted walk on the beach listening to the gulls screech and the waves make chiming sounds as they rushed into the sands. It was low tide and there were a few people about - not many but that's hardly surprising as it's not a scenic beach - its interesting with the vast desolate expanse of wet sand dominated by the slowly decaying urban sprawl of the old steel works - there is still something quite magnificent about the slow rust rotting the now totally defunct buildings in to weird and wonderful shapes and colours - I remember the first time I went to south Gare a very windy blustery day and the furnaces were lit and you could hear and smell the fires and from the right place see the glow - days long gone now but it left me with a sense of magic - that transformation of metal -now transforming in a totally different way....

Now out to sea there is a shiny new wind farm - todays answer to John Masefield's tall ships! white gleaming giants todays answer to technology - a complete contrast to the steel work looming in the background.

There were was one huge disappointment though and something that will probably put me off revisisting - piles of bags of dog waste just left for the dog waste fairies to pick up - surely leaving your dog waste in a bag is worse than just leaving it out - and to be honest there didn't seem to be many dog waste fairies about so it was pretty grim!!!

This litter and dog waste issue is becoming more apparent - we have always advocated wild camping and most importantly a leave no trace policy - we have often taken home much more litter than we ever arrived with - sadly it's like everything else, the small minority spoil things for the responsible majority and dogs will be banned from beaches - wild campers are being hounded out of quiet locations and there is still litter and dog mess in abundance because the people that do that kind of thing just don't care!!! Personally I would like to see a bigger effort made on fines for littering and the whole issue taken seriously! an Impossible situation to police but allegedly police are out in full force moving wild campers on so may be they can tackle dog fouling at the same time!

Rant over - and its a waste of effort really as I'm as always on social media preaching to the converted!! be vigilant I say - but how else to resolve this problem I have no idea!!!

Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty b...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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