This sandcastle which was probably made yesterday must have been quite spectacular until it fell into ruins and now looks derelict.  Lying beside it were some small trousers so perhaps they were dropped by a young family of castle builders.
Our walk on the mile long Ravensheugh beach was along seemingly pristine sand.  Apart from the child’s trousers, I found only 4 small bits of glass, a crisp bag, one plastic bottle and a plastic tube.  What I didn’t see were the thousands of microplastics and other pollutants that are probably in the sand. This week there have been reports of microplastics, fragments of rubber tyres, varnish, paint and synthetic fibres in the snow in the high Alps and even in the Arctic.  These appear to have been carried thousands of miles by air or sea and it’s a very worrying situation that perhaps we are breathing them in and ruining the planet.  The children who built the ruined castle will have more opportunities to build others in the sand but we have must be careful not to destroy what we have.

(I have now completed my backblips for the last week)