Today I woke up, and I just knew that it would be a beautiful day for an early morning beach walk! This before 7am on a Saturday, my mind spinning with things to do since I had no commitments, beside parenting.

However, while getting ready to leave my son informed me that he’s spending the morning with his grandpa and I was a Free Agent.

I canned the beach walk and decided to instead, head on over to the gym. “Please can you cancel my contract? Or no wait, let’s leave it to continue on a month to month basis just in case I have the sudden urge for a workout!” and off I went to the Spur, laptop in bag ready to get some work done.

I found myself the BEST seat, a stunning sea view and a plug point to ensure my battery won’t die on me.  Watching the ocean, a bright yellow banner and two small boys caught my eye…the BEACH CLEAN-UP! I scanned the area and saw Simon, still waiting at 09:10, hoping that someone may pitch to participate in this volunteer initiative.

I watched him pace on the beachfront and told myself, “Why not?”, the breakie special is on until 11am…Kai will probably only be back home at lunch time…so I called my waiter over: “please can you reserve this table for me, I will be back in 45 minutes. I’m just going down to the beach quickly to do the clean-up”.

These were the contents of my bag…

Collecting litter between the railway line fence and the road is quite relaxing. It gave me time to get my thoughts in order while picking up litter, hanging out a homeless person’s blanket (I’m sure he/she will appreciate the gesture, but if it is still there later today then I am going to bin it!) and watering the plants.

As you can see…I first had to empty all the chip packets before bagging it!!

I don’t think people realise just how detrimental litter is to our ecosystem! I picked up countless chip packets, each packet filled with rain water, water that our plants desperately need if they are to survive! All these chip packets, trapped about 5L of water!!

This bag was filled with countless chip packets!!

Please people, if you eat chips, don’t be a d*&k and litter!!!! Dispose of your chip packet in your bag if you sitting in the train or wait until you see a bin, don’t toss is out the window! Yes, Metrorail passengers are the leading cause of all the waste trapped between the railway line fence and the road on Fish Hoek beach).

Simon and Nicky, thank you for leading the monthly CleanC beach clean-ups in Fish Hoek! I appreciate your commitment to keeping our beaches clean!!