The other day – can't remember which one, and it doesn't really matter anymore, no one's counting – none of my children wanted to come outside with me, so I drove to the prom. I didn't know I was driving to the prom, I just did that thing where I get in the car and see where I end up. I like doing that. It was a Goldilocks day again – not too hot, not too cold. And if you go to the north end of the prom, it's usually not too full of people.
When I got down there, I found that the beach wasn't only pebbly – it was also shell-y. That's because Morecambe Bay is full of cockles and lots of other shellfish. Crunchy. So crunchy, in fact, that I took a little video of my feet walking. But if you're the type who suffers from motion sickness, you should probably just scroll past it – I watched it myself and felt a bit ropey afterwards.
Here it is – me crunching along the shelly beach in my new trainers that got muddied up the other day when I got lost down the lanes.
I could tell already that I wasn't going to get very far in terms of distance on today's walk – it was going to be more of a scramble. But I didn't mind that at all because I love a nice scramble. It's completely pointless but really good fun, even when I'm on my own. I usually pick a point I can see somewhere down the prom and aim for that, but I didn't bother today – I'd just see how far I got.
Masses of shells! Just masses and masses here. I got to thinking about how long shells have been piling up on this beach, and indeed any beach – what d'you reckon? Millions of years? Or only thousands? I don't know, but I'd guess at millions. They look a bit primordial, don't you think? And then I started to wonder how a shell gets made. Does the creature in the shell know it's making the shell? How long does it take for a shell to be made? How do baby shell creatures get born? How to the mature ones mate? Cor, the natural world is properly amazing. It's even better when you know some of the answers, I reckon.
What's quite weird about a pebbly and shelly beach is that the shells turn up with their mates, in groups. Cockles are everywhere, but I saw that, around some rocks, there were almost no cockles and just these flattish shells. Is it that they all stick together in their friend groups on purpose, or is it that they're just the right size and shape to get trapped between rocks as the tide goes back out? Oh, I think I've answered my own question there.
In some places there's still a bit of sand left. I heard, when they first built the groynes and fancified the prom, that they also imported the sand from Saudi Arabia or somewhere. I think this is true because there was no sand here when we were growing up. The imported sand hasn't last very long – probably only about fifteen years. I doubt we can afford to import any more. This is a shame. But not really for me, because I'll be going to live on the east coast one day, and there's plenty of sand there!
Anyway, I scuffed about in the pebbly sand for a bit because that's what it's there for.
I reached a muddy bit. It was sort of muddy, but sort of just puddly. Is silt technically sand? I've Googled it. Silt is not technically sand. It's silt. We're just learning all sorts today, aren't we? Amazing.
So, I had to get across here without completely ruining my new trainers. As you can see, there are not many really big puddles here, so it wasn't too difficult. Plenty of rocks to tiptoe across. Fun!
Next I came to the Grassy Plains of Morecambe Bay, very famous. This grass is weird. It's like some sort of sea grass, all thick and seaweedy, growing in jagged clumps, not at all like normal grass. I couldn't look at it more closely though because it was submerged and, well, my trainers. It's probably got all sorts of interesting little things living in it though.
I couldn't see a clear way past the grass on the beach side, so I went back onto the prom just to get around it. I didn't much like it on the prom though, and I put my facemask on because there were masses of people, all walking too close. Back off, people I don't know!
I got back onto the beach as quickly as I could, and then I wandered around here for a bit, admiring the view across the bay, looking for a perfect stone. That's a thing everyone does, isn't it, when they're on a beach? I've been looking for a perfectly round stone for years. I've never found one. Matthew found an almost perfectly round stone a few years ago, but we rejected it because it was very slightly egg shaped. Not good enough.
I was a bit pushed for time on this day, whatever day it was, because this was a walk I was squeezing in before work for a change. I usually walk after work, but I suspected (rightly, as it turned out) that I'd be working late and didn't want to miss out on some of this very fine weather. But I was running out of time already, so I had to head back.
Here, I have not fallen on my face on the ground. No, I am just at the bottom of a little slope that leads up to the crab pool. I decided not to go back the prom way because of the crowds of unmasked people. Instead, I decided to risk my neck and my trainers by staying on the beach. I'm glad I did because it was way more fun.
But before I climbed up to the crab pool, I found a shell still intact with both sides. Sometimes you find closed shells that you can't open unless you smash them (or cook them, I suppose), and they've still got cockles inside them. But mostly, shells are empty. That made me wonder where the creatures all go. There are millions of shells on the beach – are the cockles and mussels all eaten by birds and fish? I guess they must be because I can't think of another explanation. You wouldn't leave your shell voluntarily to go for a swim if you were a mussel, would you?
Here's the crab pool. It's pretty cool. None of my kids have ever fallen in, but we once brought their cousin Taylor here, and the first thing he did was fall in. That was hilarious. Taylor's mum thought so too when she came to pick him up.
The crab pool, as you'll have guessed, is full of crabs. People tie bits of bacon to the ends of lengths of string to catch the crabs. We don't usually have bacon on us, so we go down onto the beach to look for mussels still in their shells – there are usually a few – and we tie these to our string instead. You can catch lots of teeny crabs, and they sit in your bucket and have a little feast, and then you put them back in the pool. Fun! The crabs don't mind, I'm sure – they get fed.
Lots of people around the crab pool, so I stayed on the beach side again. This meant picking my way across here, avoiding the muddy bits and scrambling across the rocky bits.
I found the pipe where the crabs get into the pool. This must be how they get in because there are no other pipes and the tide doesn't get high enough for them to be swept in over the rocks. But when the pool is empty of water, there are never any crabs in it, so the pipe must be opened sometimes so they can all scarper out. I thought you'd want to know what it looked like inside, so I risked my trainers for you ...
Wicked! It's all barnacley and crusty. I didn't look inside it for very long though because I started to wonder what it would feel like to climb inside and crawl to the pool, and I freaked myself out a bit.
Next, I encountered seaweed-covered rocks. These were very interesting. The seaweed makes rude noises when you step on it – this would've been more fun if one or two of my boys had been with me, but I giggled to myself nonetheless. I can recommend a seaweed walk if you need cheering up a bit. I didn't particularly need cheering up, so I was grinning like a loon.
I realised here that I'd got myself into a pickle again because there was no way back to the car that wasn't muddy or silty. I'd have to either go back to the crab pool or just find a way across without falling on my face in the mud. But since I don't fall, I knew I'd work it out somehow.
Ah, here are the Grassy Plains of Morecambe Bay from the other side. You can see a little bit better that the grass is all sprouty and spikey. But much too muddy for me to explore. I really should buy some wellies so that I can look at things in the mud.
My car was only half a mile or so beyond the plains, so I stopped snapping photos and just trudged and scrambled my way back, enjoying the crunchy noises underfoot. Even though I hadn't gone very far, I could still feel this walk in my legs by the end. Perhaps beach walking is a bit more strenuous than I realised. I should probably do more of it, in that case.
As I'm writing, it's fair blowing a storm out there tonight! Hope everyone's okay and not flooded. Sounds like flood weather. There's a lot of silent lightning as well, which I didn't know was a thing – I thought thunder always accompanied lightning. Anyway, stay safe, everybody.
Until tomorrow, landlubbers.
WQ
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