I was walking on the beach before 7am this mornning,  and so absorbed in the opening installment of “Island Beneath The Sea”  by Isabel Allende that I almost stepped on this tiny little offering; the smallest, simplest one I have ever noticed.  it was definitely an offering, as the candles were clearly pressed down into the wet sand as the water receded.  Yes, I know you can’t see two, but indeed there were, one slightly shorter and directly behind the other – duh – how could I take such a photo ?  Answer – I was absorbed in my book.  As they’ll be gone now, you’ll just have to take my word for it that there were two.

The wind was blowing rolls of foam in from an unusual direction, and the dog watched these very nervously as they slowly and majestically glided along in the final shallows before coming to rest on the sand.   I haven’t seen them like that before.  Couldn’t get a good snap of her wary nervousness which was rather funny – and as the tide receeded they left these interesting linear patterns I haven’t seen before, either:

When I first noticed these markings I thought that in the 3 weeks I’d been away some newly appeared creature must have begun being busy on the beach –  then realised it was foam which had gradually lost all the air bubbles and left these lovely patterns in linear groups down the beach behind the receeding water.  3-4 weeks is a long time in the  cycle of creatures and of the beach profile itself.  Today there were a couple of 5-7cm jellyfish on the sand – it’s only a month or 5 weeks since I blogged of seeing little 1-2cm sized ones.

I haven’t sought out this year’s specially marked for Christmas household cleaning products, but I am sure there are plenty around that I should be buying and using at this special time of year, right?  However, I took this pic and put it up for my blog readers in 2005 – where does the time go? and thought it’s time for another posting.  Here in Latin America cleaning is big and a constant battle – not that people are dirtier than anywhere else, they just work harder at being clean is my take on it.  This year this whole thing has been complicated by regular doses of the volcanic ash cloud from Mt. Peyuhue in  Chile that, apart from peridocially causing flights to be cancelled, leaves a coating of abrasive powder on flat surfaces everywhere and tracks in onto the wooden floors.  More cleaning.  Or not, depending which cultural background you come from 🙂

So that makes me think I’d best get down to the supermarket and check this year’s special edition cleaning products…. nah – by the time you read this I won’t even be here,  and the house minder can feel free to use any of the products already in the cupboard.  So wherever you are and whatever mess you are dealing with or ignoring – muddy wet foot prints from the snow, ash cloud foot prints,  sand tracked inside the beach house, food rubbish left too long in the bin before taking it out, a sudden onslaught of teenage darlings home for the holidays eating you out of  house and home but not clearing up after themselves, and more –  happy Christmas and my best wishes for the coming year.

This woman is often on the beach early in the morning, generally very early, because I have come to recognise her fresh barefoot print walking ahead of me on the wet sand.   Sometimes she puts the end of the stick down near her left foot, but I couldn’t find a photo of that print, and the dayI took the above photo she was just carrying it.   The footprints she leaves are very distinctive – she might have hammer toes – and she always walks on firm damp sand.  One winter morning she was walking in thick socks … not sure of that rationale.   After finding her fresh tracks just as I start walking, I will  generally pass her coming westwards towards me on her return leg.   Some summer mornings she must be there very early indeed, as on the other day when I took a few photos of her without her realising, it was only  just past 7am. and she was on her return, nearly to the point where she enters and leaves the beach.

Apart from the distinctive tracks we all leave we also move and behave distinctively so that there are quite a few regulars I recognise from a distance – they walk or run in a certain way, have particular dogs, some wave, smile, nod,  some stare straight ahead clearly in a zone.   A couple of ladies talk loud and long as they briskly walk together, I hear them as the come up behind and pass me;  there are three guys with very hairy legs and trim firm buttocks often jogging together (must take a pic for you some time..), and if I’m running later than usual I stand a chance of meeting a neighbour with a little black poodle called ‘Brian’.  Interestingly dogs are different on the beach, the wide open space means there is room for all, and but even dogs who might snarl or fight elsewhere will meet, exchange some recognition the way dogs do, and either move on or play together a bit before moving on.

I also need to start thinking of her as the barefoot lady rather than the bag lady.  Glancing at her from a disance, at first I used to think she picked up beach offerings things – candles, beads and so on, perhaps a good piece of fruit or veg,  and carry them along in her bag.  Now I know that is not so, and that her bag prolly just holds her shoes and that she prefers to be barefoot on the firm sand.  In the past couple of years I have watched her as closely as you can get without appearing to be stickybeaking – she doesn’t disturb any of those things – she does use her stick to poke about a bit in the heaps of seaweed and other material on the beach, though.   She seemed absent for a few months and is now walking unevenly -hip? I wonder.  A couple of years ago, one day I made a motion to speak to her but she held up her hand as if to stay ‘stop’ and continued on her way – I have never approached her again – for whatever reason she prefers to be solitary at least on the beach.