Mersea beachware

Being decidedly credit-crunched at the end of last year, the children and I agreed with the lucky [?] recipients that as many Christmas presents as possible for family members and friends would be home-made.

Some of us got busy in the kitchen, making chutney and other preserves, truffles and chocolate-dipped crystallised fruit, and snowman-shaped meringues (unfortunately not as snowy-white as they might have been, and some were mistaken for owls, but they tasted OK!). Others made wooden tree decorations, sprayed gold, and multimedia beachscape paintings incorporating sand, shells and pebbles gathered from the beach.

The most popular product line devised by my ingenious offspring was a range of mirrors made from sea glass, driftwood and other beach-combings. Here are some (rather poor) pics of those that remain in my house (I made sure that I was one of the luckiest recipients of all!)

TBTM, TBTE and today's sea glass

TBTM

It was a bright and sunny morning, but bitterly cold, and it was easy to believe that tomorrow's forecast snow was not far away.

While trudging eastward, enjoying the sight and sound of so many Brent geese, newly returned to the island for the winter, I spotted an interesting circular piece of sea glass - the base of a bottle or jar, I supposed. In fact, a fair bit of tugging by me and further excavation by Boy revealed that it was an upturned codd-neck bottle, nearly intact. T Wood, Mineral Water Works, Wimpole Lane, Colchester. So it hadn't travelled very far in distance - but in time, it had been on or near the beach for a century at least. I am irrationally pleased with it! A nice companion for my biggest piece of Mersea sea glass.



A brief bit of Googling hasn't revealed anything about the factory in Wimpole Lane (now Road), but I shall conduct some further researches and report back.

TBTM

Walked from West to East Mersea and back again along the beach for four bracing, blustery hours this morning and early afternoon. Boy and I enjoyed an early sandwich lunch at Fen Farm, from where we took turns watching yachts through a telescope, picked up his mountain bike and set off for the return trek, facing into an ever more biting wind.

The kite-surfers were having the time of their lives and we had a spectacular view of their extraordinary feats from the sea wall. Head bent against the elements, I picked a decent crop of sea glass without really trying.

Boy cycled inland to meet his friends halfway back, so the dog and I ended our little expedition together, sitting on my favourite old jetty with a nice hot cup of takeaway tea.

It's turned very cold indeed now. Windy, damp and grey, and night will fall early. Boy and his dad are off out again for an evening of motor launch driving duties at the Packing Shed, so it falls to me to make a hearty supper to warm everyone up. Shepherd's pie and blackberry crumble should do the trick, I think.

And then I shall be eschewing the family telly viewing and curling up with a book instead. My reading took a real nosedive over the summer. Too many distractions, I suppose. But I've suddenly got going again - am finishing off some part-read novels I abandoned (though no fault of theirs, I hasten to add) back in August, and have eagerly lined up some others from the top of the TBR pile for imminent consumption.

Whether I shall write about them here is something I've yet to decide. I found myself, a few months ago, becoming so terminally bored by the sight of my own inconsequential ramblings about books, and so completely weary of reading other people's book reviews too, that I just gave up on the whole book-blogging world. And, slightly to my surprise, I find I don't really miss it one tiny little bit! I shall probably creep back in by the back door as the days shorten and there are more hours to spend hunched over a laptop, but it will be a very gradual process, I suspect.

Saturday sea glass

Quick! Hurry! Sea glass collecting is the latest cool green thing!

See this interview with Gina Cowen in today's Times Magazine.

Roses in a Lime Juice bottle

Several people have emailed me about my biggest piece of Mersea sea glass, and I can confirm that it's definitely a Rose's Lime Juice bottle, at least 100 years old, and would once have looked like this.

My original pic was slightly disingenuous (sorry) because the bottle was actually found half-buried in mud, not sand - the photo was taken after it had been cleaned up. Most of its opacity will have been caused by the high pH of the sea-water rather than by the abrasive action of the waves, hence the slight iridescence and the relatively sharp edge at what remains of the neck.


It's currently in use as a vase on the kitchen windowsill - here it is with some random bits from the garden (nothing like such an impressive display as these sweetpeas, though).

My biggest piece of Mersea Sea Glass

Not TBTE

. . . because I forgot to take the camera on my quick walk between downpours.

But look! It's my first ever piece of lilac sea glass and I'm rather pleased about that.

High tide

Despite the gloomy forecast of 'heavy showers' (one of which put in a brief appearance around breakfast time), it's been the most glorious, sunny, breezy day here on the muddy island. Not much mud in evidence at high tide. And not much beach, either. So Boy and I had some adventures as we walked eastwards and dodged waves which were right up to the beach huts and the sea wall in places.

Enjoyed a picnic lunch watching the windsurfers and kitesurfers who were out in droves, taking advantage of the blustery conditions to reach some astonishingly high speeds. Didn't even think to glance at the time, so was quite surprised to discover when we got back that we'd been out for four hours.

I now have to rush off to do at least some of the large amount of gardening I had been postponing until today. Will put names in the hat and draw the winner of Harpole & Foxberrow later this evening.

Found this dead gannet on the beach. A live but sickly one (which sadly died while in care) was discovered on the island recently, very close to where this one was washed ashore today. Gannets aren't usually found on Mersea, so this is a bit worrying. Could it be related to the dreadful effects of global warming on the gannet population much further up the east coast, on the Bass Rock, which I mentioned here last year and which is explained on the Birdwatch blog?

A hastily scribbled note . . .

Eeeek! Too busy with work to post anything today, but have miraculously managed to find a few idle nanoseconds over coffee to visit a couple of other blogs and can heartily recommend the following:

A welcome retrospective of Quentin Blake's 'other' covers - ie not the children's books for which he is most famous - on the excellent Caustic Cover Critic (which is nothing like as angry-sounding as its name suggests!)

I've been following with interest the debate about female protagonists written by male authors on Petrona. The post and its fascinating comments relate mainly to crime fiction, but this is a terrific subject for wider discussion, I think. Are women better at writing convincing male characters than men are at creating female protagonists? If we cast the net wider and go back to Dickens, the Brontes, George Eliot, Hardy . . . what then? Is Tess of the d'Urbervilles a less convincing woman than Jane Eyre? Does it matter? Do we care?

I confess I've often considered that many contemporary women writers do get under the skin of their male characters in a way that most male writers don't quite manage with their 'leading ladies' (and I use that expression deliberately). But I'm aware that this view may be skewed by my own reading habits, gender-political leanings, academic studies . . . all kind of things, and not just by gut feeling. And of course there are some notable exceptions, some of whom are mentioned in the comments following Maxine's 'challenge'. I guess only a 'blind tasting' would really do the trick. An interesting excercise for a book group, perhaps.

Wish I had more time to think about this properly, but unfortunately my time is wholly consumed right now by a densely written typescript on the subject of the EU Markets in Financial Instruments Directive. Oh joy.

I can't sign off, however, without mentioning that I received a delightful email from a hitherto 'silent reader' of Musings - all the way from Prague, attaching a jpeg of a beautiful little watercolour of some sea glass. You can see some of Debara's paintings of sea glass and other 'finds' on her new blog here .

TBTA

The beach this afternoon.

This piece of sea glass was hiding under an oyster shell! Sometimes, it's simply a question of knowing exactly where to look . . .

Not a bad haul for a short stroll.

More Mersea sea glass comes home

Another two pairs of earrings have completed their circular journey from Mersea to Devon to Mersea again. (See here for the Mersea side of the story.)

And here is one of the last batch in situ.

This little sea glass arrow-shaped pendant is now a permanent fixture on my permanently affixed silver chain.

And those of you who've been following the sea glass saga will be pleased to hear that my mother loved this Mersea sea glass pendant, which formed part of her birthday present.

My parents weren't familiar with this particular strange obsession of their elder daughter, so I took along my copy of Pure Sea Glass for them to look at, and then they understood!

The Story of the Sea Glass prize draw winner is . . .

Cheryl!

As picked from the sea glass dish (with her eyes shut) by Iona.

Congratulations, Cheryl. Please email me your address and the book will be on its way to you this week.

(Goodness, that was unexpectedly nerve-wracking! Commiserations to the non-winners.)

The Mersea sea glass comes home

Great excitement here today, with the return of the Mersea sea glass from Devon to its native shores . . . but how different it all looks now!

Michele has described in a number of posts on her Hedgelands blog the different approaches she has taken to transforming sea glass (not just mine from Mersea, but also pieces from Lowestoft and the Isle of Wight). After I'd seen the kind of ideas she was coming up with, I sent Michele some carefully selected pieces for specific commissions. And here they are. They arrived beautifully packaged in an attractive padded box, with a little draw-string bag for each piece.

I'm so pleased to have linked up with Michele in such an enjoyable and mutually beneficial way. And all because one day I landed on some comments on the poetry page of the Guardian book blog. (It's a long story ...)

You can see all my sea glass posts here. And just a reminder that my prize draw for a copy of The Story of the Seaglass ends on Wednesday 21 May, so if you haven't added your name and would like to, please feel free to add a comment to that effect.

The Great Sea Glass Book Prize Draw

I find myself with a spare copy of The Story of the Sea Glass by Anne Wescott Dodd, with illustrations by Mary Beth Owens, which I reviewed here.

I've decided to put it up for grabs in my first-ever Musings Prize Draw.

So, if you have children, or grandchildren or a young friend or relation who you think might like a copy of this touching story with its atmospheric watercolour illustrations - or if you just fancy owning a copy yourself - please leave a comment here, or send me an email (to juliet [at] doyleandco.net) and I'll write your name on a slip of paper with my editor's red biro and pop it into my special sea glass prize draw dish.

It doesn't matter where in the world you live - if you win, I will dispatch it post haste.

So, roll up, roll up - the more the merrier.

I'll ask my windswept younger daughter, who's named after my favourite island (no, not Mersea!), to pick a name at random out of the dish on 21 May (which is the day of my mother's 80th birthday).

Good luck!