The sea is still in overalls. Yesterday was hard work and now it is yellowish-brown with knots of seaweed and filthy sloshes. Since yesternoon a large cork dances there, refusing to wash up. Not too pretty, but it is kind of company.
A few days ago I nearly stepped on a snail. Just for company I put him into one of my many empty gherkin jars and lodged him on my table. At first he was a bit shy. He's of the Escargot family, but I called him 'Edgar'.
Months ago I had noticed the shape of the giant glob and he became a steady step stone when I descended to the rolling stone platform. He is round, a touch flat on one side, but droplet-shaped, seen from above. He was lying rather close, some twenty metres from the edge of the meadow. He is perfect, can't get better, only smaller. He is like a stone exclamation mark, a sweat of Nature, a triumph of the eternal patience of the sea.
How marbelous to share the meadow with such a comrade. To spoon up me porridge in the morning, the sea at my feet. To tell a story in the afternoon and to watch him go purple in the setting sun.
It came like an idea. This could be for real! As a sculptor I had tackled heavy tree trunks ever so often with simple means. And if it had not been so startlingly easy to begin with I might have given up right away. But by taking away a few front stones he rolled into the dip almost by himself and next to that was a convenient lever stone upon which from the flank with a plank I turned him past. Behind that was a flat where he fell and by his mass slid a bit. A little lift with a plank underneath, another plank a little further and upper and again with the first one and there he slipped forward.
Then a narrowing. One side up, support stone under, further up and a bigger supp next and three supps onwards I had him tilted and plank-planked him through.
And so he went on, half-rolling and slip-sliding, sometimes an improvised little wall to prevent a wrong direction, until the big rock block. If only I could get him up there. How now to get my Stone Henged?
From smaller stones I built a bed sloping upwards. It got to be a trial and error. Three supps up and two down, beyond description.
Finally I got him upon the block rock.
Now it may have been more sporting to shove him off the other side of the rock block and toil him up the last two metres in a similar way. But I have a friend and he is so much stronger than me and his name is VW.
Now the fishnet I found on the rocks last autumn came in handy. I wobbled it around and tied it as tight as possible with the rope I had patiently untangled from a washed-up muddle a few weeks ago. And that was some thirty metres long.
The first stretch was easy as pie. The stone slid smoothly from the rock block and his fall was broken by the planks. Now he had to be moved up and there were a few obstacles in his way. To that I have found the following seasaw. A plank in front of the stone and leaning against the obstacle and the rope through a notch in the middle of the top of the plank. First the plank stays firmly pressed and when the stone reaches the pressure point it tilts along and the stone easily moves on. Of course this did not work each time, because, although I had fastened the rope at the front of the van, I could not see from behind the steering wheel what exactly happened beyond the edge when I backed up.
The rope snapped four times, shooting like elastic in both directions. But the moment the stone came over the edge it was like an egg that I had laid myself. With the van I towed him across the meadow and by meadow-pole worked him the last few metres to his spot. And there he is now, the proof of mind over matter, an uplifting experience.
The first thing I did was to turn Edgar loose, on top of the stone. And he thought it groovy and if you look closely you can see it. He's wagging his tail.