Enjoying the Sunshine

Lazing on the beach with views like this – What better way to spend the day?

It was a gorgeous Bank Holiday Monday here. Clear blue skies saw the temperature drop to 4ºC over night but the sun was up early and it soon warmed up. With no wind at all it was a perfect day for the beach.

My parents were still here along with my sister and her children Kia and Shaun so we had breakfast and headed across with surf boards and such like. It’s rare for us to sit on the beach in holiday-maker style as we tend to just walk across, do what we were going to do and come home again, but as there were lots of us we set up camp on the edge of the dunes and Morgan and I went for a surf.

Morgan had fun and managed to stand up well, but the sea was a little cold so he didn’t stay out long. I then went out, and had a good surf with some decent 2-3 foot sets coming in. I don’t surf that much these days as I tend to windsurf so its good to get back to my roots now and then and make sure I can still do it.

Time to hit the waves

Surf's Up

I’ve just been out for a stroll on the beach to check the surf. There wasn’t much surf but it was a gorgeous autumnal morning. Cold with a light easterly wind and clear blue skies. I couldn’t resist taking some photos of the patterns in the sand.

Summer must be here – I’ve just got back from taking Morgan for his first surf lesson. It wasn’t that much of a lesson really, just getting him used to being in the sea and riding a board. I gave him a push onto most waves, but got him steering whilst lying down and as you can see from one of the photos below he even tried to get to his feet at one point.

He now wants a ‘surf lesson’ from me every Saturday and was asking when he can have his own board!

Morgan and I wandered across to the beach to help with the Borth & Ynyslas Beach Clean yesterday. Dave & Sarah organise these on a fairly regular basis and recently for various reasons such as being away, children’s parties, too windy etc. etc. we’ve been unable to help out so it was good to be able to lend a hand yesterday.

Morgan likes doing it even if he isn’t the most efficient rubbish-picker-upper out there. He also got cold meaning we didn’t stay until the end. As usual there was loads of rubbish and the 14 bags that we managed to collect barely makes an impression but it all helps. What would really help would be if people would stop leaving their rubbish on the beach and most of all if the idiot dog owners would stop leaving bags of dog poo all over the beach.

Borth Beach Clean

I know that for the best light you should really take photos early in the morning or in the evening, but at this time of year at these latitudes there can even be some fairly rich light at midday.

I just wandered over to the beach for some fresh air. There wasn’t much going on or much to take photos of, but I took a few anyway and the rich golden light looked quite nice.

Lazy Beach Days

Golden Beach Light

As the title of this website states, we are supposed to be living a Simple Life of Luxury here in West Wales. I think we are achieving that. To add to the luxury we are currently fitting a new en-suite shower room to the house. We’ve been planning to do this since building the house in 2003, but time and finances have only just allowed it.

The room at the back of the house, that we call the ‘Beach Room’ has always been seen of as a spare room come outdoor room. The floor is tiled, it has large double french doors and the idea was that I – or anyone else for that matter – could come straight in from the beach in my wetsuit and straight into the shower. Luxury indeed!

Much of the plumbing and electrics were already in place, but to achieve this we (read my Dad!) have had to block up an internal door, create a doorway in another wall, put up a partition wall and then install the shower, basin and toilet. The walls need tiling and all the finishing touches need adding and then it will be ready to go.

We do use the room as a spare room, so visitors will have their own private en-suite. However, most of the time the room has until now been used as a bit of a dumping ground. Hopefully this will change, and with the en-suite shower room it will make a perfect little gym! Actually, I doubt we’ll go that far, but my turbo-trainer will be in there most of the time and I will of course use it when I get back from bike rides and surf sessions.

I’m looking forward to it being finished already.

Our busy weekend continued with a day on the beach (after re-visiting the moth traps set the night before).

Morgan and I had a play in the sea, which gave me a chance to get my waterproof camera properly wet. It coped well and considering its size and durability I’m still pretty impressed with the photos that it takes. I used it to take all of the photos on the beach on Saturday as it is the ideal camera for such locations. I certainly wouldn’t want to be swapping lenses and playing around with my SLR whilst soaking wet and covered in sand. Somehow I don’t think it would like it.

Here I come!

Getting deeper

Glug Glug!

As well as playing in the water we did some ‘beach art’ too. Some of it was for Morgan’s homework, and then we started messing around balancing pebbles and such like.

Beach Art

Pebble Art

Pebble Stack

I also wanted to get some silhouetted shots of Morgan playing on the beach and quite like this one. In fact I might get it printed onto a large canvas so that we can hang it on the wall in the living room.

Playing on the beach

Stand off!

Horses at Ynyslas

Beach Scene

After collecting Morgan from school yesterday we popped in to see a friend but a Morgan was nodding off to sleep I decided to take him for a little stroll on the beach for some fresh air to revitalise him!

I had my little compact Pentax Optio W60 waterproof camera with me so I took a few shots whilst we were there. It wasn’t a particularly exciting day weather wise but with a little bit of fiddling I was able to get some decent shots.

Which is your favourite?

I got up early this morning and whilst messing around with my camera before my little photo assignment at the Lake Vyrnwy Half Marathon tomorrow I snapped this photo. Flowers make such good subjects, amazing colours, lovely textures and (as long as it isn’t windy) they don’t move either.

Pretty in Pink

Looks as though it should be a lovely weekend here in Borth and with all the holiday-makers back at home and the students not yet arrived, it should be pretty quiet on the beach. I’d like to get out there an make the most of it, maybe some snorkelling or canoeing, but there’s lots of work to be done in the garden too, especially if I want some flowers like the one above.