In a bid to dispel the blues that have developed in my heart from overwork, terrible weather and being stuck in the house through combination of above plus lack of funds for anything exciting, I demanded a road trip today!
I marshalled Colin to be in the house by 10.30am (he normally gets over here by about 11.30am so that was a challenge). I checked the weather forecast and the tide tables and decided on Crantock. For anyone who doesn’t know this wonderful spot, it’s a beautiful beach, about a mile or so long, made up of glorious, fine, golden sand. It’s owned by the National Trust and they graciously allow people to take their dogs on the beach all year round – hurrah for them. It’s also very safe – there are no roads or other hazards that can harm the dogs (other than stray palm oil fatbergs that is).
We were in the car by 10.45am and on our way. It’s about an hour’s drive but although there are closer beaches it’s worth the ride in our opinion because of all of the above. So, at 11.45am we were opening our tailgate for two delighted dogs to leap out and start romping across the sand dunes. Wahay. Just because I want to, I'm going to share an old pic of "the old team" on the headland with David and Colin eleven years ago!
When we had crossed the dunes towards the bay, we discovered mayhem. The dunes had been basically cut short by about 10-15 feet from their normal position and there was a sheer “cliff” of sand ending about 8 feet in the air. Some intrepid explorer in advance of us had managed to make a path down to the beach but the damage from the storms of recent weeks was immediately obvious. All along the beach, clumps of grass and other dune plants were strewn and debris was widespread. The tide is advancing a lot further up the beach than before. It’s not such a big issue here as it is on other local beaches but nonetheless it was shocking. The only man-made defence on this beach is this line of granite boulders that have been reinforced in recent times with sandbags and iron rods to hold the whole thing in place and unless I’m mistaken, they are there to prevent the Gannel river from encroaching onto the beach. This shot was taken of them in October 2003 and you can see how the weather then had allowed plants to flourish on the rocks - they have all been torn away in the recent storms.
Crantock was, is and always will be a special place in my heart and we had such a fantastic romp on the beach today in glorious sunshine, followed by lunch in the Old Albion pub in the village, where the landlady made a huge fuss of JD and Lola by giving me a pot of biscuits for them. The whole thing was fab and a little bit of my equilibrium has been restored.
