I had a really crap nights sleep last night with lots of waking up to cough or blow my nose so when Scarlett woke just after 7am I was so not ready for the day to start. But we had to be out of the house by 9am to go to the Beach Beasties event at Pagham harbour. It’s a bit of the coastline which I’ve never been to before despite it only being 20 miles away – and totally gorgeous. And totally within our budget of being a FREE event too :). Ady gave me some cold and flu tablets so I was flying high by the time we actually got down to the beach.
Full set of pictures here on flickr but here are a couple of my favourites:
There were five rangers and about 15 children and equal adults so a fairly good sized party of us, it was low tide so loads of rock pools and seaweed covered very shallow water to search in. We all were given a tray to fill with water and keep our catches in to show at the end and the rangers walked amoungst us telling us about what we were looking at. We caught crabs – shorecrabs and spider crabs, shrimps, sandmasons and Ady saw although didn’t manage to capture, an eel. The crabs were the most exciting really – I spotted a pretty sizeable shorecrab which Ady captured and we all gathered round to inspect and were told all about how they shed their shells once they outgrow them, grow back pinchers over the course of 2 or 3 shell sheds and how they balloon up with water to help split their shell. Really interesting stuff 🙂 Someone else then found a spider crab which was even bigger than our shorecrab and as it had just shed a shell it’s current body was still quite spongey and soft while it hardened off so that was an excellent example. Scarlett spent ages with one of the rangers learning about the different types of seaweed – mermaids hair, sea lettuce, bladderwrack and Davies talked to another ranger for a long time about the crabs and shrimps. We were there for about two hours before the tide was about to start coming in and looking back to the beach we realised it had filled up with sunbathers. All the trays were gathered in and we all had one last look at the various things the group had collected before the crabs were all taken off to be released away from the crowds and we headed for home to have some lunch.
Ady cooked sausages, eggs and bacon on the barbecue after which I decided I was too hot to stay outside in the sun and came in to slump on the sofa, falling asleep for the best part of four hours 😯 I had plenty of visitors – Davies brought me a blanket and Scarlett came in at least twice to tell me she lloved me and I kept rousing enough to blow my nose and hear twitter texts coming in but one minute it seemed to be 3pm and the next it was 7pm! I guess I must have needed it though and it’s not done me any harm because I’m already ready for bed again now, so it’s not messed up my sleep pattern either – probably just sleeping off the cold and flu tablets 😆
Ady and the children did some seaside inspired paintings and then made fish shaped pancakes on the barbecue for their tea. Ady chucked them in a much needed bath around the time that I woke up so I went and washed their hair while Ady starting cooking a roast pork joint and some roast potatoes on the barbecue for our dinner. The children took ages to go to sleep, which surprised me as it’s been a full on day for them. We were supposed to be going to meet friends in London tomorrow but it’s my Dad’s birthday which had slipped my mind when I made the arrangement so we’re having Mum and Dad over in the late afternoon / evening and actually unless I make an amazing recovery overnight I think a trip up to London would have done me in anyway. I so want to be over this cold for the end of the week so a quiteish day at home, baking a birthday cake for Dad and pottering about should be enough to see if off hopefully.