Next year I've been invited by my brother in law, Russell, to join him at the Mothers Day Classic in Brisbane to raise funds for Breast Cancer Research.  After confirming with him that I didn't actually have to RUN, I agreed that if we could match up dates then I'd do it with him.  In anticipation of that I decided I needed to up my daily exercise routine to get a little fitter. For the past week or so I have been following the same circuit around Clachtoll and Stoer and it includes a stop at Stoer beach.  I've been trying to remember to photograph the beach each day, and it has been interesting to look at how, in different lights and weather conditions, it varies in temperament.   And of course, as always, the landscape keeps offering me inspiration for colour combinations for yarn.

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We've had a series of storms over the past few days, and it has resulted in a series of terraces being formed by the pebbles on the beach - they are difficult to photograph but you can see in this photo - the darker patches are where the waves move up the beach between the terraced stones:

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It has also meant new flotsam arriving on the beach.  On one day there was a dead conger eel, and the next day there was this :

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Looking more closely at the rim of this barrel, I initially thought the shells were some kind of mussel and the other bits were the beginnings of seaweed growing on the barrel, but after asking for opinions on Twitter, I think these may be (and it has yet to be confirmed by our local Ranger, Andy), Geoduck Clams, an edible clam, and while they look beautiful here in their immature state here, if you search for pictures of them fully grown ..... well it is hard to believe anyone would actually eat them!

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I love the colouring on the shell, and that bluey grey and burnt orange shade may well make it into a yarn colourway soon!

My routine walk that has taken me to the beach each day has bought back so many memories of our first stay in Stoer Lodge, a magnificent house set just above Stoer Beach.  This was the view from the lodge, and it was our stay here that first planted the seeds in our head of how wonderful it would be to live in this part of the world.  That was over the Christmas / New Year period in 1994/95.  A couple of years later we bought Tigh na Creag, and 20 years on I am now able to visit this view whenever I want.

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