Stubborn Dog on stone
by
Belfast Artist
Tracey McKane
@ArtTracey .
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It was a later beach today for Beach Buoy and Stubborn Dog.
The car park was almost full.
The holidays.
The lovely bright day.
The last day before tier three slips and slides into tier four.
Whatever the reason, the village was busy!
Beach Buoy had no right to complain, for there he was too.
He much preferred an earlier, emptier, quieter beach with a chance of dawn's first light.
It wasn't to be this morning.
It was as bright as a Summer's day.
It was as cold as a Winter's one.
It was odd so many people, so many loose dogs, so many peep-peep dog whistles.
The tide was a fair way in, claiming more and more of the beach as the walk went on.
There was a very chilly, but slight breeze from the north.
For a short while the world almost looked normal.
It almost looked normal to the north too.
A Brown and White Spaniel tried to drink the sea dry.
A Greyhound chased an imaginary Hare, as an Alsatian chased the Greyhound that gave chased its Pooka .
A man walked his dark brown Collie pup.
A child rode an electric quad bike that almost became a quad boat as the tide rushed in and surrounded him.
Dad saved the day and the quad bike.
Beach Buoy collected four large stones to stack
Stubborn Dog Stack.
He crossed the sand that had been untouched by the tide and the heat of the sun.
It was like walking on fossilised footprints.
The sand was frozen solid.
He reached the stack.
The stack had been disturbed.
Beach Buoy carried out a few repairs before adding today's stones, so easy to put another stone on over Christmas.
Cathedrals of Industry.
Beach Buoy and Stubborn Dog went back to the frosted sands of the beach.
They headed back to the north after reaching the softer unfrozen sand.
They had to keep an eye out for the in-coming tide.
The tide was working its way in.
Warming, smoothing and erasing foot and paws prints as if it were a giant, shaken, etch-a-sketch.
Beach Buoy looked up to the sky over the bay.
'Typical! A cloud.'
They made their way back.
They swerved and dodged people as they travelled back to the north like some sort of downhill skiers twisting and turning as they negotiated a slalom of people, not poles.
They headed for the beach ramp.
It was busy, too busy.
Beach Buoy counted over thirty people using it at once.
He stood back.
He only had to wait a minute or two and the ramp was theirs.
Thankfully a warm coffee was waiting in the van, the queue at The Hungry Seagull was extensive.
Beach Buoy sat in the front and sipped the warming drink.
People came and went, some queued, some paused.
An answer to the Headland's Andy Capp sculpture?
Beach Buoy looked in the van's side mirror, the landscape one not the portrait one on the passenger side.
VW T4's have these.
The Sun was beginning to set.
BEACH BUOY.
