Serendipity

Today I walked my dog along the beach after dropping Kaidin at school. We head to the dog beach in San Remo, which is a pretty nice beach with only a little swell, but massive tidal movement. Literally, in the morning there is a beach and by the afternoon there is only dunes.

Today I took down a magazine, but I thought I would actually walk and try to find some dogs for Pepper to play with. So I walked along (I used to walk 8km along the beach every few days, but now that I actually have a dog I just walk down and up one bay, about 2 km) and as I was walking I was asking for a friend, a friend for me and a friend with a dog so Pepper could have a friend because I am just so damn lonely at the moment now that Adam is gone. A wave crashed and I looked out at teh sea and giggled a bit and thought ‘yes, even an undine* would be better than no friend at all, as long as it doesn’t try to drown me’.

Walked a bit further and there was a older couple with two red heelers. We chatted about dogs and the beach and the dogs played and Pepper even followed one of the heelers into the water. A man walked along with a shepherd cross and told us that he’d seen a seal, but there are never seals at that beach, so I kinda shrugged it off and kept walking when the old couple had to head off.

Further down the beach a lady and her gazillion kids where playing with their two Labradors*. I told them about there supposedly being a seal and we stood and chatted while the kids swam and the dogs played and Pepper even went further into the water.

Suddenly, a little along the beach a head popped up. I can see why the legends of selkies began – from a distance, the seal’s head really did look like the head of a doe eyed woman with long dark hair. It was huge. It swum along the bay towards the groyne where some surfers were catching the little swell. It must of been lost and looking for other seals, because as soon as they got out of the water it swum around the groyne and away into the open ocean.

The lady and I talked for a while and the dogs played and things were good. It wasn’t until I was walking back that I realised just how well my wish came true – a friend to talk to, a friend (two in fact) for Pepper AND an undine thrown in for free.

With luck like that maybe I should buy a lotto ticket.

*An undine is a water spirit. A selkie is an undine who spends part of their time as a woman and part as a seal. they can take off their seal coats and come onto land, without the coats they can’t return to the sea. Depending on which legend you listen to, they were either nice and saved drowning sailors or horrible sirens who lured men into the depths to drown.

*When you have two or less kids you tend to count offspring like this – none, one, two, a gazillion. I think in reality it was about 4 but they wouldn’t stay still long enough for me to count them, so maybe it was 5.