This Is Simply Seafoam!

A thick white blanket settled gently on the seaside town of Cleveleys near Blackpool on Wednesday, but this was no seasonal dusting of snow from above. The Environment Agency dispatched officers to Princess Promenade to gather evidence as gobs of foam blew in from the sea and smothered streets, cars and houses.

The foam is whipped up by strong winds once or twice a year along the town's seafront and vanishes soon after, a spokeswoman for the agency said. Lab tests on samples collected in earlier years have found no signs of pollution. Decomposing algal matter is the prime suspect for the mysterious lather.

"It appears to be naturally occurring. When the tides and winds combine to churn dead algal matter up from the bottom of the sea, it produces this foam, which is quite dramatic," the spokeswoman said. Officers visited Cleveleys on Wednesday and again on Thursday to collect more specimens to analyse. The results of the tests are expected to confirm the foam is natural and not caused by detergent in seawater or other pollution.

By studying the foam, the agency hopes to learn how and why it forms and so predict when the froth will return. "If we can understand what conditions cause it, that will help us predict it and help local authorities involved in the cleanup operations," the spokeswoman said. - guardian

...And these two Brits are hysterical!

Light!

Recently, a friend showed me a wonderful “secret” that has been happening probably for a decade in this one tiny Florida hamlet. One Christmas a gentleman loaded his bow and arrow with Christmas lights and shot them up into a tree. The effect was so festive he did it to his whole yard and volunteered his services to all his neighbors, who accepted gratefully.

 

Today, it is not really known whether he still decorates everyone’s trees or if he has taught them to do it themselves, but the effect is breathtaking and I only wish these photos could do it justice.

Christmas is a time when we all feel more connected to our fellow man (unless we are at a blow-out sale at Target then its every man for himself) and the fact that everyone pulls together in this neighborhood to decorate it for the season is visual proof of the sense of community here.

Since these photos were taken at night they are not the clearest, but please remember that all the vertical lights are the ones shot up into the trees. These lights go around corners and bends, from one block to the next. Quite impressive.