two beach days
The beach calls when the weather’s gorgeous. We’ve been to Crosby Beach twice in two weeks. The first time, we rode the train from Liverpool Central with Zsofi and Carrie. Raspberry fell on the sidewalk on the walk to the beach and Tom very kindly offered her part of his giant gummy snake to cheer her up. The sun dodged in and out of the clouds and the tide came in and receded in the time we were there. The incoming tide created a smaller pool of water that was really nice and warm and I wish I spent more time dipping in toes in there. I found a bone in the sand and we took it to the World Museum in the hopes that they might be able to help us identify it. It looks like a femur and Lucas suggested that it might belong to a quadruped, by the way it’s angled. The staff at the museum couldn’t really tell us what animal it came from. Maybe a rabbit or a chicken, they offered, which didn’t really help.
This week, we rode the train with Carrie and met Zsofi and April, whom we haven’t seen in ages, there. The kids rolled around and leapt into the sand, just like the last time, and Raspberry got stuck in the mud and had to be rescued by a passer-by. It was low tide and I thought I’d prefer it over high tide, but I realized I didn’t enjoy the squidgy mud between my toes and trying not to think about the multiple tangled masses of [dead?] worms strewn all over the wet shore. I found another bone — either a femur or humerus — in the vicinity of where I found the last one, as well as what looks like an inflated sand dollar. The finds make me want to go back there to see if I can uncover more bones or something similarly cool. We didn’t spend as long on the beach this time around, as we walked over to the playground to meet Lucy. It took us eons — four adults, seven children and three babies — as the kids took much more joy in climbing the sand dunes than walking on the path. I must admit that if I didn’t have a sleeping Ares strapped to my front, I’d like to have climbed them too. The next time we go, I think I’d like to spend more time around the sand dunes. As Zsofi so wisely put it, the kids were enjoying it, so why were we pulling them away from it, in favour of what we perceived to be a fun place for them? Anyway, definitely the dunes the next time.
Dawn Yow 