Not quite a Dali giraffe...

Hell’s Mouth once again, my first visit this year, and not as much wash-up on the beach which is unusual and, for me, a little disappointing.

The weather was glorious and I’d planned to build my Dali giraffe as a last act in a wonderful summer. My Dali giraffe a dream come true. I could almost smell it burning as I stepped onto the beach.

I looked around… What was going on? Where was all the usual rubbish that washed up on this magnificent beach? Hell’s Mouth without a tumble of flotsam and a tangle of jetsam - it simply wasn’t right.

Maybe it was because of the great summer weather and the lack of high winds that came with it. Either way, there were hardly any beach animal building materials to be seen. Sometimes after a storm you can’t move for washed up planks, plastic bottles, oil drums, and the odd bright orange rubber glove or twenty. But with no storms for a quite a while  now, the beach was practically detritus free.

‘Drat’, or something very much like it, I thought as I searched for the makings of the fabled giraffe. If I could only find five decent lengths of plank and an oil-drum my giraffe would soon become a reality. Even four lengths might have done, I’m sure I could have fashioned a neck from six or seven plastic bottles and a length of pipe.

After twenty minutes of combing all I’d found was a long steel spike and a motley array of twiggy branches. Not a single oil drum, no plastic bottles, not even a rubber glove was in evidence. Perhaps the beach fairy had come one evening and made the beach all sparkly clean.

Not to be defeated I decided that if there was to be no giraffe this time then the least I could do was try and make some sort of animal sculpture. So I did the least I could do and managed to contrive this rather pathetic fellow. His legs are twigs tied together with twine, his rather droopy neck a length of bendy pipe and his body some old washed up string. I call him ‘not quite Dali’s giraffe.’  The best that I could do in the circumstances I’m afraid.

I reached into my pocket for my lighter and then decided that he was too sad to burn. I could wait for the full giraffe to see my dream realised and a giraffe a la Dali blazing away on the beach. So I left him to his water bucket and walked away.