Just spent a lovely overnight stay at Stevenston, on the west coast just next to Ayr. Journey was long and a bit tiresome, 3 hours to go coast to coast and that with the assistance of the A92, M90, M80 and M77! Our friends' house is literally yards from the sea which there is sheltered by Arran and Ireland. I was amazed how long I was able to be out there with wet hands without getting cold, it's a real contrast to Carnoustie where there is little between you and the winds coming down from the Arctic, where the warmth is leached out of you fairly fast and you need to have several layers on. The range of beach debris was amazing to someone used to east coast beaches, at Carnoustie we get a lot of bivalves and seaweed, and occasionally an influx, like the brittle starfishes we found washed up in their thousands on Lunan bay, but for the most part the joy is in finding the most beautiful worn down stones and glass, and in the fury of the sea on a windy day. At Stevenston the beach was strewn with debris, only a small fraction of it human and that, I was told, from the council's habit of shoving household waste into containers and dumping it out in the Firth of Clyde where they hope it stays sunk. There are tiny bivalves thin and translucent like fingernails which my girl is using as fairy wings in her pictures, the smashed remains of sea urchins, a vast array of driftwood from small bits of straw to knarled lumps and pieces of coral. I will upload pictures when I get to drawing, it's going to keep me busy.
