Sand play

I had a brilliant time the other day playing on the beach at Winterton in Norfolk with teacher and animator, Becca, who was gamely showing me how to animate plastic! After weeks of drought and sunshine, the weather was VERY testing with huge downpours at regular intervals (though sadly not a drop at home in Suffolk in my drought-ridden garden).
But we managed to test a couple of ideas between storms - you can see what Becca did here....

Can't wait to put what I learnt into practice soon!

The time is right for air raids...

The air seen from the earth

Recent weeks have seen air pollution alerts in England and Wales, with Defra urging the public to take "sensible precautions". For more details see BBC news report. So now is the time to take very seriously the issue of safeguarding your future air supplies. Luckily I have already prepared the resources necessary to help you do this - visit flyintheface.com to find out how.

Air quality too poor in your area to go air raiding?
Then consider applying for one of my exclusive boxes of Fresh Air to tide you over...

And check out what's happening in Norwich this weekend:
Other/other/other have a organised a good clean run on 21st May to highlight the city's air quality as part of Invisible Dust, a project which “involves leading world artists and scientists collaborating to explore air pollution, health and climate change”, and which is taking place as part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival....

Check out their websites here:
other/other/other blog
invisible dust

Mothballed at sea

My friend Bridget brought me an unusual present last Friday, found whilst she was taking a morning swim at Dunwich. Beautifully packaged to coordinate with her dress, we wondered could it be sweets...or were they perhaps bath bombs...?

But on closer inspection all became clear:

These were mothballs which seemingly had indeed been mothballed at sea, for the expiry (or perhaps production) date on the packaging was 01-2002!

Some of the instructions were pretty intriguing too: for clthes, leathers, book and file to antiworm, antimildewand water closet's antifoul. CAUTION: far away from food, Tableware, toy, Children, Can't eat, please see a doctor if eati it.

 

 More intriguing, as this product was clearly not destined for the British market and, being unopened, had presumably not been deliberately jettisoned from a ship, is how it came to be floating in the North Sea at all... 

Another mystery in the waves.

Sea of Napoli

We spent a wonderful few days in Dorset/Devon last weekend including a lovely time on the beach at Branscombe  - site of the MSC Napoli grounding in January 2007, resulting in the spillage of the contents of many of its 2394 containers into the sea and onto the shore...
What a contrast now (and with our North Sea beaches on the Suffolk coast - perpetual victim of huge quantities of shipping waste) : on my short walk on the beach I found only one piece of (visible*) marine litter, shown below.

* who knows what traces of other pollutants remain... according to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, about 150 of the Napoli's containers held "hazardous" substances including industrial and agricultural chemicals.
Despite this - and arctic water temperatures - we enjoyed a lovely swim... come on in the water may be lovely!!

A new world record!!

Found on a local beach: the oldest recorded crisp packet ever washed up on a beach anywhere*...

Sadly this pre-decimal packet of Golden Wonder crisps was not found by me but, rather appropriately, by flyintheface artist-in-residence, Jane Darke, whilst staying here earlier this month. Jane is well known for her 'wrecking' on the Atlantic coast Cornwall coast which she documented with her late husband Nick Darke in her brilliant and haunting film, The Wrecking Season.
 To see more of Jane's work, visit her website.

* unless you know different....?

Skipping in Orford

Earlier this month our  second 'residents' were here: Jane Darke (film-maker & painter from Cornwall) and Andrew Tebbs (photographer, sculptor and more... from Derbyshire). On a quick walk round Orford, both Jane's (longterm wrecker!) and my eyes alighted on a skip in Quay Street in which we found this discarded carved lobster plaque...

- a really apt find in view of Jane's own lobster fishing and not least her film The Art of Catching Lobsters, an extraordinary and moving film shot on the rugged North Cornwall coast, in which Jane records her husband Nick's life as a fisherman, beachcomber and playwright... 'a film about how to manage love... and the loss of it'.

To read more about the film, see theartofcatchinglobsters.com

Talking Walking...

Last summer on a very wet, cold and windy day, I was interviewed by Andrew Stuck (producer of Talking Walking) whilst walking on the beach between Thorpeness and Sizewell. You can now hear the interview here...