beach clean community

I had a wonderful surprise the other day when I was contacted by 2minutebeachclean to say they were sending me a present. It was a lovely piece of jewellery made by the talented staceypumpkin who donated several necklaces made from driftwood and freshwater pearls. It's hard to put into words what pleasure this has given me - to be picked and to wear the necklace. I enjoy the beach cleaning and consider it to be something we should all do without thinking - the people behind 2minutebeachclean work continuously to put the message across in a lighthearted and fun way - even though the problem of plastic pollution and all the rubbish left on our beaches can be so upsetting. What an amazing community it is.

Pics of rubbish collected on Bognor beach, lost shoes at Bracklesham, me with my necklace, Finn enjoying the sea breeze and some of the weird finds I collect.

Finn update

What a wonderful dog Finn is becoming. He's really settled in to our life now and seems to be very happy in his new routine. He's very loving and obviously up for all the walking that is expected of him.

It was Gra's birthday last week so we spent the day out walking, beachcombing, collecting and photographing. Plus a bit of eating and drinking too - the perfect day. Below are pictures of paint on the bottom of boats.

East Head at Wittering was very stormy but beautiful. I did a #2minutebeachclean and in the picture of the sand you can see the tiny pieces of plastic littering the beach - all the black and white bits are plastic too. They can be found all along the sand dunes now and this shocks me every time I see it. I also collected some shells and seaweed to draw.

Beachcombing

Walking along the beach, collecting things is one of my pleasures. Even picking up rubbish on a #2minutebeachclean is enjoyable for me! Here is my collection from the last beachcombing walk at Pagham beach - the inspiration too behind my latest illustration.

2016

Happy 2016 - very late but better late than never, I'm hoping this will be a good year. We had lots of lovely walks over Christmas - I actually managed a beach clean on Christmas Day but the most important news of all is Finn's first anniversary. Unbelievable that he's been with us a year now. We had a little family party for him - it was important for my sister to be there as she found him for us. He was the centre of attention and loved all the fuss!

Stamp

Yay - my illustration for 2minutebeachclean has been published in the great Uppercase magazine - issue 26! The brief was to design your ideal postage stamp and seeing as I am slightly obsessed with beach cleaning, I decided it was a good idea to highlight this cause.
Thanks for including my work Janine.

Beaches

While walking Finn I cannot stop beach cleaning. Martin Dorey - the founder of 2minutebeachclean was on BBC2's Springwatch last week - he's doing an amazing job. I've discovered that each beach I clean has a different type of rubbish: Wittering was littered with lots of dog poo in bags - I can only think that after bagging it the dog's owners didn't want to carry it around with them so discarded it - even though there are many bins around. Pagham has lots of matted fabric caught up in the dried seaweed. I didn't realise what this was until I'd been clearing it for a few weeks - WET WIPES - disgusting. Apparently they are becoming a real problem as people are using them more and more. Then there's Bognor - clogged up with beer cans and takeaway rubbish - just left behind regardless of all the bins along the promenade.

I also cannot stop photographing boat bottoms! I love the layers of coloured peeling paint and the textures. I think they look like abstract paintings.

Shoreham

We visited Shoreham last week to see the houseboats, which are weird and wonderful and constructed from all sorts of paraphernalia - coaches - planes - even a robin reliant. I did not want to spoil it (if you are going to visit) by photographing them all, so this is just a taster. Park in beach green car park and they are right in front of you. I'm still doing my 2minutebeachclean as you can see.

new obsession ....

.... making pictures with objects found on my 2 minute beach clean!

2 minute beach clean

A couple of weeks ago I saw pictures on instagram of #2minutebeachclean and Martin Dorey's brilliant idea of doing a 2 minute clean every time you visit a beach and now I've become mildly obsessed. On our last 3 visits to Pagham harbour, Chichester harbour and Pagham beach, Gra, Finn and I have collected up a tiny bit of the enormous amount of rubbish we saw. It is amazing how much is out there, we've found some interesting things too as you can see below. So does this inspire you to do one?