Moments
I started writing this yesterday – but I was spaced, floored and flattened by all that has happened in these three months past. It has been a wonderful, exciting and challenging time with so many great days, and a few evenings too, taking place on and around the Black Pearl. Just a couple of days ago Boxie dropped a CD off for me. It contains nearly 70 photos he has taken, whilst biking on the prom, showing moments on the beach, moments in the life of the Black Pearl, moments in the making of Hannah the hacked-off dragon, moments that I remember. Thanks Boxie – there are some great shots!
Sometimes life seems like a succession of little moments. Moments we may remember all our lives – sometimes the big frightening stuff that happened seems to fade right away, but the little things – the moments of knowing, of understanding, of sharing – they hang forever like jewels on the thread of memory.
As many people know, for me the beach means NOW! And moments are always NOW! Listening to the children playing, sharing time with friends on the Pearl, dancing and singing under the “Blackpearl Illuminations” at Halloween, having a real family bonfire night with the children playing on the beach as the huge firework displays lit the skies over Liverpool, sharing the silence with strangers on Remembrance Sunday – these were special moments for me, and I know they were special for other people too.
Maybe a pity that NOW! has to end, but there’s always another NOW! just starting! And yes! We do expect there will be a Christmas Nativity around the Black Pearl – provided she weathers the winter storms. Maybe it will even be a shipboard Nativity – maybe not – but I am fairly sure that there will be some illuminations this year.
Certainly there are rumblings about a New Year celebration on the beach – pirates in kilts? Probably not me – not with my knees! Not anybody if we get a North-Easterly! Thoughts on this proposal, in a bottle, please.
A little later in January there is a day coming up that we need to celebrate – always provided, of course, that the tides and the Winter storms have been gentle on the not-so-old girl – The Black Pearl will have her first birthday on 12th January 2014. We may need to make it the 11th for comfort and convenience of all who want to brave the elements so soon after New Year.
There might also be another totally new and certainly unusual event – if there is a market for anything quite so bold and revolutionary. It’s all down to Tommy – another regular on the prom cycle route. Tommy had a fair and valid complaint that he didn’t get a mention on a Radio Merseyside interview about the M.A.P. Black Pearl Exhibition at Marine Point in November. Tommy very generously provided me with a top-notch, state-of-the-art shovel when I needed one, and yet he did not get a mention. Apologies are due there alright. He also told me that, with a bit of hard graft to shine her up a little, I could fry my breakfast eggs on this shovel. It does not work well on a ceramic hob but with a barbecue on the beach we might get somewhere. I think this idea could give New Brighton the edge on the full-English of the future. “Would you like that shovel-fried, Sir?” “Yes please! And sunny-side up!” It could be Noah’s Ark all over again! You don’t know the story of Noah’s Ark? Well get yourself round to Cathy Roberts at “Literally” – the bookshop opposite the train station – and be amazed … when you’ve got a moment.