Trash & Treasure

Shoes, jeans, heart-shaped pebbles  and driftwood

 

SIL and I went for a beach picnic today.

Lebanese beaches come in two kinds; private and public. The private ones get cleaned and are maintained, and for a hefty fee they’ll provide you with the basics (lounge chair, parasol, little table & waiter). They are off-limit, unless you pay, but the pros are that you can tan in a bikini without being ogled.

The public ones do not cost anything. And for that money, they do not get cleaned and you will need to take roving eyes for granted. Most people go for private beaches.



Drift wood

  

Camp fire on the beach (we forgot the marsh mellows!)

 
But right now, all beaches are public. The beach clubs are not operating yet, and as such all beaches are open. They aren’t cleaned either. 

And that is why we (SIL and I) like to picnic on the beach right now. Because one man’s trash is another person’s treasure.

The amount of driftwood that has washed ashore over the winter is impressive. If you’re halfway creative, you’d drive your car down there and collect all the wood you can find; it should get you through the entire winter if you have a chimney!



"Which pair are you going to wear?" says child.  " Nobody wears anything, beware of foot fungus!!! " screams Mom.

 

 We did that (drive our car down to the beach) and collected a good amount of drift wood. Not for the chimney, but for an art project we’re working on. We both (SIL and I) feel like retiring and creating art from the one-million-and-one things you find in nature (specifically the beach).



For some reason we had more right pairs than left pairs. And three  complete pairs (in the middle, back row)




Besides driftwood, you find all kinds of interesting things. Shoes, for instance. What is it with beaches and footwear? We collected a total of 38 shoes and slippers in the space around our car. Of which 3 complete pairs, and one original Birkenstock. We also found 2 decent pair of jeans. It is that we are not in need of jeans, but if ever the economy will bring us back to Depression Times, we know where to gather our stuff!

 And so we hung around. The kids  gathered odds and ends, built a teepee from bamboo sticks, made a fire from driftwood and created an art shoe store from abandoned slippers.

Can we sleep here tonight?