Searching for Seaglass
Reflections from a week in Devon.
I recently got back from a trip to Devon — an annual tradition where I scoop up a bunch of books, the dog leaps into the car and we meander through Oxfordshire and Dorset to get to the beautiful Devon coastline.
Visiting the coast reminds me that the best things happen away from our screens. In Devon, my life becomes a pared back version of what it is at home. With no emails to answer, WhatsApps silenced and no life admin to juggle, the pillars of my day become reading, walking and the main event: searching for seaglass.
Each night after dinner, Adam and I stroll down to the beach with Tarkie in tow, off the lead and at his happiest. While Tarkie sniffs every lock of seaweed by the shore, we scour the stones on the sand for flashes of smooth glass. We spend an hour, sometimes two, cycling through the various seaglass searching poses: the classic standing hunch-over, the deep squat with face close to the sand, or sitting with a curved back and your legs sprawled into a great ‘V’, the way you might have sat in the sandpit at nursery.
My maternal grandmother loved holidays. She and my grandad jetted all over the world well into their sixties, later spending more time returning to their favourite places. My granddad would often buy her a piece of jewellery when they travelled, which meant she had a jewellery box brimming with gold pendants, rings with impressive stones and bangles that glimmered. As a child, peering inside that box left me overcome with the feeling I was seeing real treasure. When she died, her jewellery was split between my mum and her siblings, and to my delight I was gifted one of her necklaces.
I thought of her during one of the sunsets, as I watched the colours melt into one another. On our way back to the apartment that evening—seaglass was always followed by a couple of rounds of Boggle—I found myself recalling her favourite movie.
“It was Lady and the Tramp,” I said. “She just loved it. And you know, she never got to see the new one that came out. It was released a couple of weeks after she died. Isn’t that sad?”
As we wondered back up the hill to the apartment door, I thought of those two funny little dogs. Lady, the elegant Cocker Spaniel with a smooth coat and a gold pendant on her collar, and Tramp, the stray with curling grey ears and affectionate eyes.
The following day, we took Tarkie down to one of the beaches early, since dogs weren’t allowed on that particular beach after 10am. We were greeted by a handful of other dog owners, all letting their pets burn off some morning energy. The bigger Labradors chased tennis balls into the sea. The smaller dogs barked from the shore or mooched around the sand.
One dog, a curly-haired puppy in a rich amber colour, ran by so quickly she looked like a chubby guinea pig being fired from a cannon. The sight of her head bobbing as she darted around the beach, frequently changing direction, seemingly with no goal but speed, left me fizzing with laughter.
“What breed is she?” I asked the man watching her fondly, his brows raised in amusement.
“She’s a cavapoo,” he said. “Three months old.”
“Ah, the same breed as mine,” I said, as Tarkie weaved around his ankles.
“He’s lovely,” he said, squatting to scratch behind Tarkie’s ears. “Was he as mad as mine at 3 months?”
“He was exactly like that at 3 months,” I grinned, as the puppy zoomed through a nearby group of dog walkers, her ears pinned to the back of her head by the wind.
“What’s her name?” I added.
“Lady,” he replied.
As we all left the beach at 9.59am, I ran my thumb over a piece of seaglass in my pocket, thinking of its smooth surface and softened edges, the result of years and years of being brushed by the sea.