Aidan Walker

33 Ways to Tickle Your Toes

#1 in a series of series: ’33 Ways to Tickle Your Toes’. For reasons unknown I have been in the habit of photographing my feet while doing stuff, usually in, on or around beaches, boats, the sea, the #NorthNorfolk marshes etc etc. 33 Ways is a picture-led (pixel-led) on-foot journey from #ScoltHead Island to #BurnhamOveryStaithe harbour. We start, naturally enough, with sand as soft as… soft sand
This is where the sand has been wet, has dried and grown a thin crust which breaks and your foot goes through to the softness below.
Oops no feet. Seal skeleton on the route, surrounded by evidence of other feet engaged in examination.
Got to get off the beach… which means bare feet on a mixture of sand and stones. Watch out for the chunky flints that get you on the instep. Unless you’ve been there for weeks without wearing shoes like we did as kids and the skin of your feet is now in serious need of attention. You still look cool though, striding around impervious while others limp and mutter.
Ah blessed relief. Banks of the shallow tidal creek (Island end) exhibit mixed hard sand, seaweed of the ‘Ophelia’s hair’ variety and intermittent – and avoidable – stones.
Stones fade away and the Ophelia hair seaweed gets thicker, offering relief to nervous feet
Woah baby! Where’s the sand? Ophelia’s hair covers the land
Ah, here it is. But with that tantalising ‘soft crust’ finish, as you can see from the footprint in the middle. Kind of firm … but kind of soft
… and now we’re getting on to the truly firm stuff, into which feet do not sink. Leave a print, yes. Sink? No.
Now it gets interesting. A well-trodden texture, sand hard enough but the salt has formed a thin layer. A marker of how long it has been dry between tides.