Our sixteenth wedding
anniversary is today and we began our celebrations yesterday with a drive to
find Horsey Bay.
Neither Alex nor I had
ever been there. I noticed photos on
face book of someone we knew, who went there last weekend and posted photos of
Seals. I asked her where it was and
then looked it up on line. We had a
general idea looking at a map and we set off yesterday afternoon. We knew it was cold and took hats and a warm
winter coat. It was only thirty miles,
yet the last few miles, were most challenging and we ended up stopping at a pub
to ask for more details. They
said to go further down the road and
when you see Nelson’s pub, it is a couple miles behind the pub, down a dirt
trail, through a farmer’s field.
I didn’t think Alex would
walk that far, so we opened a gate and drove the car through. The path was muddy and with lots of pot
holes and standing water. About a mile
toward the coastal berm, and we came upon another gate. This one was for walking through and had a
big cement boulder, preventing cars from going through. We saw people walking along a path to the
left and a few people coming towards us.
Alex parked the vehicle and we put on our warm hats and gloves and set
off toward the cliffs.
The wind was cutting and
Alex had his sunglasses on to keep the wind and sand out of his eyes. A young couple came to meet us, the Mother
carried a young child and Dad pushing a stroller with another in it.
“It’s so cold!” She said.
“And such a long walk!”
Alex asked, “Did you see
any Seals?”
She replied, “There were
three, two big ones and a baby.”
We carried on and Alex
said to me to, “go ahead at your own speed, and don’t worry about me.”
I went on ahead, feeling
excited. When I came to the sign, I
read; Please keep well away of the
Seals as they can move fast and bite.
Keep dogs on a lead. Grey seals
are wild animals and should not be approached.
During November to February, new-born seal pups will be on the beach and
sometimes they will be alone. If
disturbed the mothers may not return and the pups will die.
Past the sign, I climbed
the sand hill gap, between two cement walls and down the sand at the other
side, to the beach. The water was grey
and rougher than I had ever seen it. I
noticed two large seals side by side, near the rocks and a baby grey seal shuffling along in the
sand, close to the water. There may
have been a dozen other people on the beach.
I noticed a few seal heads popping up out of the water. I used my zoom to take photos and didn’t get
really close. My favourite photo below!
After my photo taking, I
looked back to the sand dunes to check if Alex was here yet. I saw him sitting on the wall in front of
the large sand cliff. I went to him to
see how he was doing. “Freezing!”
“Are you ready to go
back?” I asked.
“I’ll just sit here for a few more minutes. “
I looked at where he was
sitting… on wet sand and the back-side of his pants was wet.
We captured a few more
photos for our memory bank and then began the plod back to the car. It didn’t seem as far or as cold, because
the wind was now at our backs!
We climbed into the car
and Alex with his wet pants, laid his jacket on the seat first.
“I really enjoyed
that,” said Alex.
I asked how his knee was
feeling and he said, “Just fine.”
We arrive home about
four-thirty and at six o’clock, Alex ordered Indian food and went to collect
it. We had a yummy Indian meal and
enough left for lunch on Sunday. Alex
had a hot curry with chicken and rice. I
had chicken Shashalick, which is chunks of chicken in spices with peppers and
onion and without sauce. I also
enjoyed cabbage which I cooked at home and we enjoyed mushroom Bhaji and sag Bhaji (spinach) We each had a glass of Rose`.
Sunday morning, we had a
leisurely breakfast and exchanged cards.
At noon, our neighbour
Chrissie came over. She had a card and a
box of truffles for us. Her card read,
“Happy Anniversary to the Best neighbours ever.” I made three cups of tea and she sat down
and we three chatted for forty minutes.
At two o’clock we went out and drove to
Longwater Retail Park. We went to the
hand car wash and the Polish guys cleaned all the mud of yesterday from the
car. We browsed around the Range,
which is a house wares store with a garden centre section. We were wandering the aisles for an hour
and then checked out with a few little things.
Stopped by MacDonald’s before heading home.
As we drove home we had
our first snow fall of the year, with big fluffy flakes. They melted as soon as they touched the
pavement. This evening at seven
o’clock I looked out the front window to see the car covered in a white blanket. It must be colder now, about four degrees.
We’ve had a lovely weekend
together, and enjoyed a new experience seeing something we’d not seen
before. It’s
good to reaffirm our Love and affection and to know we would do it all again if
we had a chance.
