Excursion to Serendip, Part III

Finally, I come back to the beginning of that walk on the south end of Boundary Bay beach.

We parked on a side street near a gravelly walkway to the beach. Someone with more enthusiasm than persistence had been doing a spot of gardening in patches beside the road and along the walls.

Dead daisies and live hollyhocks.

A barnacled net float on a twig.

Ah! Teasels! Once useful, now ornamental.

Pink mallow. I think.

The walkway opened out onto the beach. Sand flats opened up in front of us and to the north. Looking south, an arm of the land encloses the beach. Just beyond this is Point Roberts, USA.


Some kids had made one of those driftwood shacks. This one was quite "house-like"; the last few I have seen have been more like caves. It's not house-like enough, though, to keep the rain off, nor, I would think, exactly safe for visitors.


I remember building these when I was a kid, too. And teepees of sticks and ferns, tree houses of board ends painstakingly toted up the trunk, even a hay-mow hidey-hole, my favourite, with its heady aroma of summery grasses and the warmth of the sun in every handful. And, in the winter, if the weather co-operated, snow forts, with their piles of ammunition neatly stacked behind.

The building instinct; something else we share with the birds and the bees.

'nuff reminiscing; back to business.

We walked north, along the path between the houses and the beach proper. The gardens are blowsy, free-form, decorated with boat stuff and driftwood. Oversize windows reflect the sky, looking, Laurie says, like theatrical sets. Even construction materials get into the act.

Dramatic

This one has a Japanese "feel" to it.

Haphazard planting, aiming for a wild look.

At the end of the afternoon, after our escape from the incoming waters, we looked back south. A small wedding party had assembled on the point.

And I henceforth dubbed that shack, the "Honeymoon Hotel". Air-conditioned, an unobstructed view, the beach at the doorstep, silence; what more could a couple want?

Oh.