Seashore

This is the page I sent at the end of March for Juliette, so I do hope that she won't mind my posting about it. I was so glad to hear that it had arrived.

The photo in the insert was taken on the island of Grand Turk in the Caribbean.

I included a description of the piece, which you can read about here. (Just click on the photo and it will enlarge.)

I had been lucky enough to travel to the Caribbean on a cruise earlier this year, and knew that this spot had to be used for Juliette's "Seashore page". The colours of the sea were truly amazing. Living in the UK, the sea always seems various shades of grey with some blues. This depends on the time of year, of course. In the region of the Caribbean, the colours were so intense, it really took my breath away. I took a number of photographs.

One shows the sand and a footprint left by the man I had seen sweeping the leaves from the beach a few hours earlier. I had woken very early just as dawn was rising and was able to watch activities to clean the beach ready for the passengers to disembark. It is truly surreal to see a huge cruise ship visit such a tiny island. It dwarfs everything around it. But life goes on as usual, calm and unhurried.

As I had mentioned to Juliette, I was reminded of a passage from a children's book much loved by my own daughters when they were younger. I was able to share the book with the classes I taught too. You can read it below. Margaret Mahy is a superb writer. I love her descriptions, they are so vivid. The photo is of a scan I made of the page in my battered, much read copy.

Should you wish to read it for yourselves, the ISBN number of my copy is this: 0-14-050624-1.

It is called "The man whose mother was a pirate."