Rocks and Feathers

I have been away from the beach and this blog for too long - a combination of a holiday and getting a job.  But on Saturday evening I headed there after work and it was a beautiful evening, just after a very high tide and I had the beach to myself.

On previous visits I've left beach drawings and coloured in bits of driftwood. 

On the visit before this one, I left a little cairn perched high between two boulders

 and when I went there on Saturday night, there were 4 more cairns all along the beach!  

I know cairns are very common all over the world - I got the idea for the cairn from the beaches on the island of Kos where I went for my holiday and now that idea has been transferred to Ballydowane.  Maybe someone will see these cairns and build one on their beach and so on.  For me, it is a way of recognising the beach and of saying 'I was here', taking time to find the right stones and the right place to leave behind a souvenir for others to see and share.  On Ballydowane, which is a narrow beach with high tides, you need to find a good spot to stop the sea carrying the stones away again so there is that consideration too. 

Before I left, I re-did my cairn using more stones and the base of a metal shovel I found for extra stability.  Then I added a feather below.  And then I found a plastic bowl and more feathers so I made a feather arrangement and left it on a flat rock, away from the tides, like an altar.  Feathers are very common on Ballydowane and maybe, hopefully, the next time I go back, they will be fluttering all over the rocks as well. 

It is really a very small cairn