crEAting Christmas ~ Day 1

I flipped my first Advent card over today – the activity read:-

‘a walk along the beach looking for treasure to bring home ‘

Knowing we would be in Scotland today one of the things I love to do at this time of year is to walk along the beach.  I am drawn to the shore during these winter months when it is rather grey and bleak looking it has a natural wild beauty of its own and I look forward to finding all those small treasures amongst the pebbles and rocks to bring home; pieces of sea weathered glass, shells and bits of driftwood – this was a perfect Advent activity for day one.

But not today – in fact the very reason I love going down on the beach at this time of year suddenly feels rather foreboding due to the sad, sad incident that has happened here and you will understand why I am not going to fulfil this Advent task at the moment.

I think you will all have heard on the news by now that the two bodies of the missing couple have been found washed up on the shore across the bay at Port William early this morning (which must be close on 15 miles across the water) and our little beach here, where the incident happened, is no place to be at the moment.  It has been a very subdued empty place apart from the Coastguard team  – not even a dog walker has put a foot on there even though it has not been closed off to the public it just hasn’t felt right to go down there – it would seem an intrusion.  The whole village (a small population of just over 300) is extremely shocked but as a community will pull together to help the family and friends of the couple that died in any way they can.

So I had to improvise slightly today and we went into Stranraer (our nearest town) for the afternoon to join in watching the parade with the camels and see the switching on of the lights.  When we planned to come up here I hadn’t realised it was the switching on of the lights and we had not seen it before but it was a lovely place to be – the sense of community here is so special it made a lovely first day of Christmas and I will post about this tomorrow with pictures.

Tonight my thoughts are with the Kenneavy family and their tragic loss. x