only a prawn in whitby

How nice to be beside the sea with my babies. Here we are on top of the hill in Whitby, full of fish and chips, fresh air and the sounds of seagulls, celebrating a birthday.

Whitby must be my most visited seaside town. We had numerous holidays there as a child, in fact there is a picture of me as a little baby on my first ever trip to the seaside...

I also visited as an art student when I did a project about lobster pots on my pre-foundation course and again with my foundation group from Jacob Kramer college, and I even remember a time in my late teens after we left our indie nightclub one night and my friend thought it would be a good idea to drive us two hours to the beach. We sang 'Only a prawn in Whitby' (a song by the Leeds band CUD of my youth) on the beach and then drove home again. Art students will be art students! I took my kids there too when they were growing up so for all of us there are memories around every corner.

This trip was a birthday present for Ffion so finding a fossil and a stone with the letter 'F' within five minutes of walking on the beach was a nice gift.

Whitby is great for stones with holes...

They are so satisfying to find. These holes in these 'hagstones,' which are said to ward off evil spirits, are made by the acidic enzyme of a little clam. Here's some more folklore about them.

The old cottages in Whitby are made of red brick and there are lots of richly coloured worn down brick pebbles on the beach too.

Every beach tells a different story.

I love pottering on a beach seeing what I can find, distant waves lapping, the hum of boats, children squealing, dogs barking, seagulls crying, it has to be the most meditative pastime. We were very happy indeed. It's such a treat for us land locked folks.

We walked and walked, enjoying the architecture and the winding streets, 

taking in the sights,

and listening to the sounds of the seaside.

This week happened to be our 'birdsong and wonder' week on my Rewild Your Soul course, with each day being an invitation to listen in a different way so I was listening in a much deeper way than usual. The soundscapes that I tuned into have really stayed with me

the way the seagull cries echoed around the harbour

the fiddle player on the pier wafting in and out

the sea

dunnocks in the ivy on the cliff

the lapping of the water in the harbour

the low hum of boat engines

footsteps going up to the abbey

skylarks at the top

song thrush (no longer the loudest) in between herring gull cries 

motor bikes hooning it up the hill

voices, laughter, greetings, snippets of conversation

excited dogs bounding and panting

fish frying

breeze blowing.

I'll leave you with a funny story...

We realised why no one was sitting on these benches when we got up close. They were covered in seagull poo! But there was one, Glynis's memorial bench, that we could perch on the edge of as it was much cleaner than the others. We sat down and I explained to Ffion what today's listening exercise was and we both closed our eyes and tuned in to the sounds of the morning. Only a moment later a mans voice said, "Is that my wife's bench?" Turns out the reason it was the cleanest one is because he comes every day to clean it, bless him. But as we chatted he 'cleaned' it with his spit on a tissue! Eeeeeeek. He said he did bring bleach somedays. This wasn't one of those days!

It's amazing how much of a place you can soak up in less than forty-eight hours. Time seemed to expand for us so it felt much longer.

If you ever go be sure to book a table at Crocodile as it's amazing. We walked down the harbour afterwards with our bellies full of delicious tapas and the twinkly lights looked just like Kate Lycett's Whitby lantern! 

Whitby is much loved by many.