ROCK BALANCING

Every time I sit on a rocky beach for more than a few minutes and it's the kind of beach that can only be described as "pebbly", more often than not you'll find that this is what I do.

I'll spend a few intense minutes trying my level best to find some nice looking pebbles, stand them one on top of the other, seek out the centres of gravity, help them to balance themselves and build a tiny pile of rocks into a very rickety structure for a few moments before it all comes crashing down and I have to start all over again.

In fact, if you've been paying attention, you'll already know that this is what I do, because I wittered about it a couple of years ago in these very pages (at http://m-a-w-h.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/stone-balancing.html if you fancy a gander) back in the day when my daily words looked like I was actually putting the effort in.

It's actually a very therapeutic way of passing an hour or so and is all very calming, very "zen" you might say (if you were a hippie) although I do my very best not to claim that it is either "therepeutic" or very "zen" for fear of being laughed off the beach, and, whilst I'm not adept enough at it to draw a crowd or to become a seaside performer, I do sometimes feel disappointed when I walk away from my structures only to hear the soft clatter of a collapse as the destructive feet of a fellow human comes along and takes a moment to destroy my humble achievement.

I'm sure that there's a metaphor for life in there somewhere, but I can't see it...

Some might suggest that there's nothing original about this minority beach sport, and it's true that I might have been inspired to do it by arriving on the beach and discovering other abandoned rock skyscrapers and thinking that looked like fun (my definitions of 'fun' have always been a little hinky...), or I might have been inspired by others people writing about doing exactly the same intense but ultimately pointless activity, or I might even just have been quietly impressed by the framed examples of the craft that come from the art galleries of IKEA and which lurk upon the walls in various seaside establishments in which I've been.

Sometimes, if the breeze and the seismology is in my favour, I manage to sneak a swift snapshot of one of these humble temporary unnatural natural sculptures before the gravity (or the small feet) kicks in, although this one isn't actually one of my more successful ones, and I'd been so focussed on the balancing that I'd forgotten about the taking of the pictures which is probably a good thing, I suppose, given that it proves that for once I had achieved a kind of meditative serenity and shut out the world around me and all of its other little distractions, at least for a few minutes.

People do occasionally suggest that I try to meditate, but I seldom achieve any success because I don't seem to have the sort of mind that can focus enough and switch off all of the other nonsense that pops into my head.

Getting back to the rock balancing, though, this time around, I know with some certainty that there is even video evidence of my indulging in this strange little habit of mine still lurking upon an SD card near me and unlikely to ever see the light of day.

So, there we are and here we be and here you are and, after all that, this is, I suppose, remains little more than yet another "pebble shot" that I'm sharing with you, then...