10.1.21
As Saturday was pretty exhausting, we made this our lazy Sunday just enjoying both beaches (Little Haven and Sandhaven beach) we already knew, for less than three hours total and apart from that being indoors. It did not need to be productive or anything else than lazy. Of course my camera was with us if there accidentally would be something to capture and as it happens there was. I was quite amazed by the parks around us, in general of course, but also by the South Marine Park right on the opposite side of our flat. We nearly go through it everyday once, either on the way to our walk or back from it. So it happened that when we went back from our Sandhaven/Horsley Hill walk we went by street lamps that where figures instead of just ordinary lamps.I was quite taken by their elegance and beauty and basically the idea in itself, to have statues pose and holding lamps within darkness. Marjorie, already with her thoughts at home and eating dinner, waited patiently but with a deep sigh here and there to just let me know that her patience was not going to last forever. I have not exactly captured the right angle and it bothers me that there can be seen a window in the back of the woman holding the lamp but something moves me and keeps me in awe nonetheless.
11.1.21
The first task of this day was to buy dog food and in taking a by now very familiar route, we went by Little Haven Beach, followed the English Coast Path into the direction of the town center and found a supermarket chain called Morrisons. After that our day was pretty uneventful only that with just one and a half hours spend outside on our morning walk, we pretty quickly wanted to explore some more in the afternoon. Instead of taking time to find a bus driving to Sunderland and walking back to South Shields from there, I figured we would just walk along the vast green land and see how far we could go before darkness would catch up on us.
So off we went and three hours later we had walked the distance to Marsden Bay and back. Let me tell you it was marvellous, not the weather obviously, but the Bay in itself. Because of the strong winds in January, which I was told by a local is very normal, there were huge waves. The sheer noise of them really seemed to scare Marjorie and she kept the farthest away from them as possible, all the while watching me carefully while I was climbing over rocks to get to what seemed to be a cave. Of course it turned out not be a cave and the adrenaline rush by the gigantic waves crashing over and over again, brought me back to Marjorie after a time, but I will never forget the salty mist on my face, the shrieking of the hundreds and hundreds of birds on the huge stone opposite of the supposed cave and the adrenaline whenever some wave brought in more water than expected, nearly catching me in my attempts to get back to the safety of the stoney beach where Marjorie was waiting.
We also had an encounter with a few ravens on Horsley Hill. Normally, or better to say in Switzerland, as soon as Marjorie approached they would fly off, I guess the English are different in the sense that they do not accept some dog trying to take what they have found themselves. So instead I was chuckling to see that Marjorie had to put up quite a soft fight in attempting to see what the raven had to eat, always retreating as soon as the raven put out it's wings and tried to hack her paws with it's beak. But this incident reminded me of my feeding seagulls at the Vierwaldstättersee once and taking pictures of them flying by. So while Marjorie, the only dog within miles to even think of taking up a fight with ravens for some grain of food, I enjoyed watching her while feeding the ravens to fly by and so that I was able to take some pictures. The wind was really intense so the majority of pictures was either to dark or shaky, but I like the result nonetheless.
There is no news from the Scottish Government by now concerning my plead to be let into Scotland due to volunteer work, but it is only Monday, there is much time left. Anyways I want to start this week by improving myself with quarantine routines that do not involve data roaming as the apartment I am staying in has no Wifi, I only have a little bit of free data roaming left from my swiss telecommunications company and I intend to use that wisely, and mainly for the purpose of keeping my blog alive. This will be challenging as there is no TV inside the apartment as well. Apart from the data roaming rationing Marjorie and I am more than well, ever grateful for the quarantine vacation scenario and keep on working to find our way to Scotland soon enough.
Love and light, beautiful souls
Nadine
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