Mudlarking 28 - an earring and a hand

Although I'd been to Greenwich before, I hadn't been there at low tide, so thought I'd try it.

I got to Greenwich and found a massive cruise ship, with people just getting off it and getting into tour groups.

The foreshore was also full of tourists but the tide was out enough to walk along and the next beaches were quieter and I felt calmer.

I picked up an earring, but not the sunglasses nor the high heeled shoe.

I saw a dead eel, which made me feel sad.

I walked past a pub and heard people laughing loudly.

I heard thunder but wasn't sure if it was actually an aeroplane from City Airport, but then the skies opened and the rain poured down and I got drenched as I headed back up to the town centre.

I found a sticker that said “Logan Maliepaard” on it and it seems a 5 year old with that name won an elephant art competition in South Africa a few years ago. Did this child visit London? Or another person with the same name.

I found another concrete cylinder to go with my other one.. another core sample from a bridge or once part of a signpost?

I found a bunch of crayons on the beach and sometimes I picked them up and then put them down again when I found more. There was a lot of light grey board (?) with a black covering that snapped in my hand. I picked some up to start with, but there was so much that I put it all down again.

I picked up a purple hand! I wonder whose hand it was.

I picked up a snapped part of keyring or something, which said “The Book of Mormon” on one side and “I believe” on the other side.

I picked up a piece of pipe that has “lwich” on it. Dulwich, perhaps?

There was a nice wavy piece of wood and a sherd that said “decor protect” on it. There was a flint that looked like an egg yolk when I picked it up but doesn't now it's dry.

There were some small red stones and sherds of different colours and patterns.

Mudlarking - 29 - mud

A low tide after work meant I headed down to Custom House. I sank more in the mud than I have before and left a big footprint and tottered about cautiously after that.

There were quite a lot of tourists about, as it's close to the Tower of London. I watched one man skip over the muddy patches with more ease than I did, while talking loudly on his phone.

I found little bits of Bellarmine jugs and some combware and Westerwald stoneware, and some colourful sherds.

I didn't pick up a vape that said “Lost Mary” on it, nor a large chunk of a cup or a saucer or something, but I almost did.

Low tide arrived and I was getting hungry so walked to Blackfriars, passing Queenhithe where there was a man on the foreshore and I watched as his foot plunged into the mud far deeper than mine had and he swore loudly and pulled his foot out, his shoe entirely covered in gloopy mud. The tide had come in far enough then that I wondered how he was going to get back to land, maybe over a fence or through the water.

Mudlarking - 30 - Unicorn and ladybirds

I had a bit of time to kill before my evening plans so headed back to Blackfriars beach and there seemed to be a lot of pottery sherds, maybe as the tide was going out, and I wanted to stay longer, but I’d already stayed too long.

A man asked me what I was looking for and I told him just bits of pottery and showed him the piece in my hand and he showed me the pipes he'd collected and said he's like a child, has to pick things up, but then doesn't know what to do with them. I told him I'm making a mosaic. I later found his collection of pipes abandoned on the foreshore, so I suppose he decided to leave them.

Wildlife on the foreshore included a fluffy big chick of some kind, maybe a baby seagull, and a ladybird, as well as a unicorn.

Of course, the day after that, ladybirds took over London and halted cricket matches and the skies were dotted red with a loveliness of ladybirds.