
I love the seaside and collecting things so all holidays have to have a beach element where we can all get cricked necks looking for shells, sea glass and fossils.
Running through the generations is the ‘who found the first cowrie’ competition and ‘who found the best fossil’. I didn’t expect my son-in-law Matt to be an absolute demon in all things competitive winning prizes for his cakes and inevitably coming up with the best fossil. Makes the elderly, i.e. me, quite sulky.
Sea glass is fun too although the dark blues are notoriously elusive. This glass picture has somehow survived for a good twenty years.
I can’t resist picking up shells and there are some beautiful ones on our beaches although nowhere near the size of the seriously exotic ones from far away.
We once decorated an entire downstairs loo with shells, who knows what the new owner of that house thought. And of course shell pictures were ‘a thing’ for the children to make, here is a survivor in the spare bathroom.
My latest New Scientist had a fascinating article about molluscs and recommended a new children’s book about shells ‘What a Shell Can Tell’. Duly purchased for the grandchildren!


