Is it odd timing to write about Christmas on New Year’s Day? Perhaps, but that’s what I am doing. As I wrote a week ago, our family spent the week in Los Angeles, in a cottage near Venice Beach.
We had a breakfast on Christmas morning of bacon and eggs and homemade biscuits. No presents, as the trip itself was the present. After a relaxed interval of digesting, reading, and gabbing, we walked to Venice Beach.
The boardwalk was much quieter than the time we visited a year ago. That 2015 walk had been on Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day. More than that, though, the boardwalk seemed like it had been cleaned up some. Less exuberantly tacky, a bit more upscale. It seemed like there were fewer storefront “medical marijuana” shops, and those still around were more discreet.
We walked across the mostly empty sand toward the water.
In the distance you can see the skyline of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica mountains.
Everyone took their shoes and socks off except for me. The water was too cold for swimming, but not too cold for standing in the surf, as Judy’s feet demonstrate in this photo.
Sanderlings are the best comedians on the beach. These little shorebirds go racing after the water as it ebbs, feeding on tiny invertebrates in the surf. When the waves return the sanderlings skitter away in retreat, their tiny legs a blur.
There were also somewhat larger shorebirds, a bit more dignified. I tried to ID them but couldn’t be sure. I’d like to think these are a kind of sandpiper called Wandering Tattler – what a great name. But they could be Willets, which sounds much more boring.
After our long walk on the beach it was time to head back to the cottage. There we would engage in more reading, gabbing, and snoozing – then finally rouse ourselves to make Christmas dinner.
A happy New Year to you – let’s all hope for better things from 2017.
gardeninacity 