Cleethorpes beachcombing

I haven't blogged a lot here recently because I have been south, and I had catching up to do, and I've had house guests.  Kate has only been here this week, and it has been lovely to have her here.  She's going back today.

The weather hasn't been great while she's been with me - mostly wet and windy - but the weather forecast was for better weather yesterday afternoon, and so we decided to go to Cleethorpes.  It gave her a chance to play the games on the pier and me a chance to beachcomb.

Ali drove us to Cleethorpes and because we had stopped off for petrol on our way, the SATNAV took us the scenic route through the countryside at Tealby and Binbrook and Waltham, which was lovely, although the sky seemed to become more threatening and not less as we aproached the coast.

We were all three of us hungry by the time we got there at 2.30pm, as we'd not had lunch and some of us hadn't had breakfast either, and so we stopped at Steele's Corner House for something to eat before we hit the beach.  It was lovely, although the experience was rather like stepping back into the 1950s, with uniformed waitresses, and an old fashioned feel to the decor and food.  It was gorgeous though.  I had the best crab salad I've had since my grandfather died.

We set off for the pier, but it really wasn't beach weather, with the sand whipping up a mini sandstorm from time to time as I beachcombed.  Although there seemed to be a deposit line along the beach in places, in many places the shells and wood had been redistributed by some sort of mechanical operation - I think they may have skimmed or bulldozed the sand. 

This made it a lot less satisfying to beachcomb, but I stuck with it, and got some driftwood, a few shells and a lot of wood and sea washed coaly stuff.  I've read that there is a submerged forest off the coast of Cleethorpes, and it is true that a lot of the wood is dark and very smooth.  But some of the "wood" may be coal dropped from ships I suppose.

It's weird how different beaches are - Cleethorpes has a lot of medium sized tellins in pairs, especially pink ones, and paired cockle shells... but no sea washed glass.  In fact I picked up quite a lot of sharp glass before realizings that I wasn't going to be able to carry all the glass from the beach.  Most sandy beaches will seawash the glass into smooth shapes which are etched by the action of the sea, but I haven't found any properly smooth sea glass on this beack - at the most it may be slightly cloudy, but still with sharpish ends and points.  I think this may be why the shells retain their definition and stay in pairs too.

Ali and Kate had fun on the pier, winning hundreds of tickets which translated to a bouncy egg and a tiny teddy figurine, but they'd had fun, and I had fun, even if the beachcombing was disappointing and the weather a bt grim.

Cleethorpes and shells

As a southerner, the names in this part of the country sometimes sound odd to me: Scunthorpe, Skegness, Cleethorpes all have a bit of a foreign sound.  The Viking heritage of the counties which formed part of the Danegeld is apparent in some of the place names all around the county.

I adore beachcombing, and I have quite a bit of experience around the beaches of the southwest, and hardly any experience in the north east, and so I was delighted when a trip to pick up curtains and a rug in Grimsby made it possible to visit the beach at Cleethorpes, which is just about half an hour's drive from Market Rasen.

There's the same seaside town vibe in the centre of the town, with amusements and fish and chip shops everywhere, but if you drive up the seafront to the car parking at the leisure centre, the beach is quiet and deserted at this time of year.  It's a sandy beach, an when the tide is out, it's a long (wet) walk to the sea, with the bracing winds from the east.  But I loved it.

I beachcombed along the beach while my sons walked back to town to buy some chips and look at the shops.  I found a lot of winkle and whelk shells, some necklace shells, tiny cockle shells, and lots and lots of pink tellin.  There is a good guide to identifying British sea shells here.

Some of my Cleethorpes fnds

On a second visit, I found a lot of driftwood, more tellin shells, and noticed the things I don't find here that I have found in other places... no sandwashed glass, the edges of the glass on the beach are still sharp... very little ceramic, no fragments of large cockle shells smoothed by the sea either, although as you can see from the above picture, I did find quantities of the lily-like centres from whelks.  For anyone who wants tiny tellin and cockle shells to decorate something, it's a fantastic place to collect.