19th day

A lovely cold walk on Singing Beach today.  So strange to walk at the shore without a dog in attendance. Singing Beach, a short drive from our house, is a beautiful sandy cove flanked by mansions, where many dogs are walked in the winter. 

Strange vortex on our way back.

It gets its name from the sand which sings, or squeaks rather, when you walk on it.  Apparently this phenomenon is not entirely understood, but it is thought that it takes place when the sand is made primarily of quartz and when the actual grains of sand are all uniformly spherical.  It's a beautiful name, much prettier than Squeaking Beach.  When we went to Prince Edward Island two summers ago, on the eastern point of the island we came across the same squeaking sand phenomenon, and the beach is called Souris, a perfect name, the Mouse.

The biggest dog on the beach, Max, a mastiff, the size of a small pony.

The smallest dog on the beach, with a miniature ball.

Tim had been taking these photographs of all the dogs, when we met a couple with whom we are acquainted, whom we haven't seen for a long time.  We were standing chatting with them when the mastiff, who was lolloping about with another dog, ploughed into our friend who screamed with pain and exclaimed that the dog had broken her leg.  But after a couple of minutes she was fine, and the owner of Max was, I expect, very relieved.  There would have been a lot of litigation, this being America.  

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
I discovered audiobooks a couple of years ago with a great deal of excitement because they contribute to the ultimate in multi-tasking.  You can read a book while driving a car to school, you can paint a picture and listen to a novel at the same time, you can do the tedious washing-up while you are far away inside a story.  

The Goldfinch (Het Putterje) by Carel Fabritius 1654

 I have been dipping in and out of the world of The Goldfinch for quite a while and finished it today while folding the washing.  It is 32 hours long, beautifully read, and with a wonderfully wrought young protagonist, Theo Decker.  I am always impressed by authors who write as the opposite sex in such a seamless, believable fashion. 

This little painting survived a gunpowder explosion which killed Fabritius at the age of 32, and destroyed most of his work.  It is a very sad painting, when you notice the thin chain which keeps the bird a prisoner, but the little finch still stands there as itself, the viewer feels the personality of the tiny creature, the delicate beauty of the yellow stripe in the feathered wing, the knowing eye.  The book is about many things, friendship, catastrophe, how the lives of the rich are so far removed from those of the general public.  But it is mainly about Art, and how all the sentiments and experience contained in a work of art come down to us through the centuries, and by appreciating the artwork, by loving it, being enthralled by it, we all become part of that enormous human sensibility, we are richer for loving and appreciating that beauty.