A Bee in my Bonnet

Almost fifty years ago, around this time of year, I used exercise a dog with my father on the tidal flats at Rockmarshall.  Many a time since I have walked out to the lighthouse, tides allowing.  There used to be a time too when one could walk from Rockmarshall to Gyles Quay along the shoreline, something I also often did in the past.

No more these days, however.  This morning, after a break of perhaps twenty-five years, I took a dog I am minding down to give her a run on the sands.  Except now it is no longer possible—well, certainly not easy.  Once you pass the few houses along it, the old path down to the water’s edge is overgrown as a jungle—with what remains of it so knee-deep in grass as to be quite forbidding.

And one has to be careful, too, the nearer one gets to the shoreline, because there seems to be various bits and pieces of junk scattered here and there and hidden in the long grass.

But most of all there is the stench—which may well explain why the walk has been so obviously abandoned.

This morning I persisted until I reached the sea’s edge, having to be very careful in my footing, only to discover an expanse of thick and glaucous and evil smelling mud, with what looked like a hard brown crust on the stones leading down to it.

Ugh!!

The usual story given locally for the terrible smell is rotting seaweed.  But that being the case, why is it not happening at Gyles Quay, a mile or two further up the coast?

A much more likely explanation lies with the great ‘white elephant’ (you can change the first letter of the adjective for a more appropriate description) across the bay.

Anyway, what was once an amenity has now become an unusable disgrace.

In an age where ‘being green’ has become such a hot topic, perhaps some of our local environmentalists might decide to take a closer look at the matter.