It is cold and overcast here on the North Norfolk coast today, so I'm not going out. Instead, I'm going to sit at my desk and draw pictures of Starfleet Redshirts falling over, in compromising positions, with wardrobe malfunctions, and being generally clumsy and hapless for this month's art challenge.
While the Host does that, here are some photos from March which include the kind of weather I wish was going on outside now.
17th March
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| A very windy day at the End-of-the-Line |
It was very windy on the 17th. So much so that Inexcuseable informed me later that
Number 34's griffin laid the same egg three times!
Nevertheless, it didn't stop me from drifting down to the beach and beyond the End-of-the Line. Once there, I started to notice some strange marks in the sand. They looked like tracks from some peculiar vehicle or object that had made its way (or been dragged) across the beach. However, upon further investigation, they could not have been from any Earthly vehicle/object as, despite their regularity, the "tracks" widened and narrowed as they criss-crossed the sand, leading to and from various inaccessible places. Also, despite the various footprints on the beach, none of them accompanied these score marks, so they can't have been made by people/animals dragging something.
I can only conclude that this scoring was left by the wind. Small whirlwinds, or the beach equivalent of
Martian dust devils, perhaps? Unless, of course, something broke through the Cusp interface? After all, we all know of the
strange and
unusual that lies beyond the End-of-the-Line.
18th March
The 18th saw a drift through Northrepps to Frogshall with blue skies all the way.
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| Northrepps church |
24th March
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| Beyond the End-of-the-Line again |
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| The chalk rafts continue to provide landscapes in miniature |
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| If you look carefully, you can make out an unnaturally straight "fault line" running from top left to bottom right |
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| No, not you! I meant the chalk in the next photo up. |
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| Ah. That's better |
"strange marks in the sand"
ReplyDeleteMystery solved!
Bloody Centauri...
DeleteLovely photos, as usual - but those track marks are a bizarre phenomenon! Jx
ReplyDeleteThey are bizarre indeed. I'm grasping at straws with the wind explanation, but other than something from over the Cusp, I'm not sure what else could have made them. They look like drag marks, but unless whatever it was that was being dragged (and/or rolled) widened as it was being pulled along (by something flying, as there were no corresponding footprints/tyre tracks), they can't be.
DeleteMermaids trying to drag themselves out of the surf?
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I went to the coast last week AND I took a picture!!!! I might post it.
It's flipping raw here, cheek burning, so I advise keeping your trousers on for at least another week.
Sx
Oh, don't get me started on the mermaids around here...
DeleteTrousers on for another week? I've seen the weather forecast - a week and a half, nore like!
* waits for picturesque coastal photo by Ms Scarlet *
* but doesn't hold breath *
Do you usually stop wearing trousers in the spring?
DeleteOnly if I have my leg-warmers on underneath!
DeleteCould the wind have blown something across the sand? If it was irregular in shape, like a stone, the things would have gone deeper at some times than others, hence the variation in width? Or the wind could have turned my hypothetical stones over?
ReplyDeleteBloody hell, what am I saying? Stop it, Hound. *Obviously* it could only be done by magical chariots drawn by the fairy folk... Probably on their way to the cottage in Cromer.
Ahem.
I do rather think the wind blew "something" across the sand. Something that rolled. And whatever it was, would have to have things jutting out from its surface that would make regular gouges along the normal score marks. And it would have to be able to expand and contract to account for the widening and narrowing tracks. Something like a Hoberman sphere, perhaps?
DeleteA Hoberman sphere pulled along by flying rainbow otters!
I remember watching a programme on BBC 2 called Nature's Weirdest Events with Chris Packam about mysterious sailing stones of the desert. What you have there could be caused by sailing pebbles.
ReplyDeleteLovely photos, I had forgotten what blue sky look like.
Do you think I could use this phenomenon to entice Chris and Michaela Strachan here before they gear up for Spring Watch?!?
DeleteCrabs? Lugworms? Small boys with twigs?
ReplyDeleteSmall boys with twigs? Oh, you've given me a horrible idea. Perhaps it was those bloody warlock youths on ther hoes (which would explain the lack of footprints).
Delete