mightaswell.

I still seem to constantly forget that WE’RE ON AN ISLAND! Having spent the best part of my life in central Central Europe, the smell of salty sea water is something so unusual to me, I can’t help but get excited and squeal in delight whenever I see a stretch of sand and some seagulls*.

After several gray and rainy weeks in Manchester, a daytrip to the seaside came just in time to cheer me up, and so we headed for Formby on a surprisingly sunny Saturday afternoon. The dunes around Formby Point were absolutely beautiful, a vast area of  sandy hills, some covered in grass, perfect for a walk and a bit of climbing. Further down at the beach I was fascinated by the dead jelly fish (of the “Lion’s Mane” species, I just found out) – big gelatinous wobbly blobs on the sand – and by the view of Liverpool in the distance, which looked like a huge industrial moloch and reminded me of Gotham city!

We were feeling quite adventurous that day, so we decided to drive a few miles further down south to Crosby to see Antony Gormley’s “Another Place” statues. After getting lost in Crosby (thanks to some confusing sign posting), we finally made it down to the beach and saw… a man, standing in the sea, the water up to his waist… and another one… and another one… CHRIST, they were EVERYWHERE!

Yep. Found the statues.

I hadn’t seen any pictures of “Another Place” before and really wasn’t prepared for this – 100 life-size cast iron statues of nude men standing on a 3 km strip of Crosby beach, looking out onto the sea. It had a similar effect on me as the first time I saw Jaume Plensa’s “Dream” on the side of the motorway: somewhere between fascinating, creepy, impressive and “this is SO freaking me out”. I certainly know what’s going to haunt me in my dreams in the next few weeks, thanks for that.

People of Manchester! You may not always be aware of this, sitting in your pubs and bars, restaurants, malls and air-conditioned cinemas – but you DO live on an island, and you’re really damn lucky. Now go and make the best of it.

* Actually, no. No seagulls, please. I nearly got attacked by one in Edinburgh once while trying to have a sandwich in a park. It was a particularly tough stare-off, me vs nature (the Scottish seagull). I couldn’t cope with that nasty seagull death stare, so I caved in and left the park eventually. In tears.