EPISODE 97: Seeing Stars in Sea Glass
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How did the host approach a stranger to start this bench conversation?
hello sorry to bother you um can i ask you a slightly odd question um i'm making a podcast um called strangers on a bench where essentially i talk to people i don't know on benches for 10 or 15 minutes um are you up for that do you want to give it a go
What a chance meeting, eh?
Pure chance. There's a lot of chance in this.
Oh, there's a lot of chance in life in general.
This is so true. Shall I tell you why I chose here over somewhere else? I was taking the Newcastle Metro for the first time. and there were two platforms either side and I was going to go to South Shields. I still might.
Okay.
But the train was delayed for about like 20 minutes and I thought, maybe that's a sign. I saw that Whitley Bay was on the other side. Right. And that was coming in kind of three minutes. So I just thought, well.
Go for that instead. Yeah, you've still got plenty of time. If you've got the rest of the day, you can still go to South Shields.
Go to the whole package. You feeling good?
Yeah.
Delightful.
Delightful indeed.
The first question is, do you have a favourite day of the week?
Probably Friday because, you know, that's when the weekend starts. So I'm sitting here today and I'm thinking, oh, Friday tomorrow, we've got a long weekend.
And then the joy begins.
And then the joy begins.
OK, I want to know what for you represents like a really brilliant Friday lived in the world, you know, within reason, within what is possible in your life.
What is possible for me, that's a really good point, actually, because I do have a disability. So I have certain restrictions. But a good day for me would be to wake up, be relatively pain-free, the sun would be shining, get my daughter up and take her to school and she would go in very happy because she also has some problems. So if she goes in happy, I'm happy. And then I come down to the beach and that's when I breathe and I'm just taking the view, the sound of the waves, the sand, the pebbles, and I have an hour where I look for sea glass. And if there's anything on your mind or if there's anything troubling you, this is the perfect kind of place to empty your mind of all those thoughts. So as you're walking along, because your brain is obsessing over finding glass, all of the thoughts are pushed out to the side.
And it really helps you relax. And I know this because I've done this for a long time and I guess... I don't have mental health problems as such, but I do have autism and that presents its own sort of anxieties and stuff like that. So coming here, starting my day here, and then if I've got anything else to do, it can wait until I'm finished here probably with my back's quite sore by this point because I'm bending over about six or seven hundred times picking up sea glass and then I'll pop home and have a late breakfast and go and see my mum and then I'll start thinking about what we'll be doing that evening me and my daughter what we might watch what we might eat what we might be doing on the Saturday and Sunday because we have sort of quite a ritualistic lifestyle both being autistic we um
We do the same sort of things in the same sort of order. And I think I've noticed this most recently. I do have a lot of passions and I have to get those into my life. Things need to enrich my life so I need to cook beautiful food. And I need to be in nature. And I love stars and the aurora borealis. And there's so many things that I'm passionate about. And I want to try and cram them in every single day.
You need a lot of life, a lot of time, basically.
Yeah, there's not enough hours in the day because there's so much beauty to kind of like... I cherish. Yeah, you kind of need to absorb it because there's also so much crap in the world that you really need that to offset it, you know. Come down to the beach and sit on a bench and enjoy the quietness.
Tell me about Seedlass, because this is a ritual.
Why did the guest choose Whitley Bay and what is their morning sea glass ritual?
This is a ritual. It's an obsession. It's a passion.
How does one begin this? Do you remember the openings?
Off and on over the years. I've lived on the northeast coast of England all my life.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
How did the host approach a stranger to start this bench conversation?
0:04–4:36
2
Why did the guest choose Whitley Bay and what is their morning sea glass ritual?
4:36–18:55
3
What kinds of sea glass does the guest find and why are pirate glass and marbles special?
18:55–27:01
4
How does sea glass collecting shape the guest’s home life and creative projects?
27:01–49:55