Amber's Path

This little path at the beach, created by a grandmother for her granddaughter, shows the desire and need among people to be creative and to be inspired and to share this with others.

A local resident who visited Switzerland was enthralled with so many aspects of their way of life, but he summed up by saying "here we don't live, we just exist". This is what happens when people feel that they are constrained by their environment rather than inspired by it.

Unfortunately, people can get too used to ugliness. They can get too accustomed to slums, to city sprawl, poverty and degradation. City gardening programmes have been started due to just this problem overseas in many large cities so that inner city kids could have the opportunity to grow up with beauty of some kind.

Here we are so blessed with the beauty of this coastline, the relative safety of beaches and recreational areas and moderate climate. Yes, some things are fleeting and momentary. We know that living at the coast - what is here today may be blown or washed away tomorrow.

But what is so much more important is to give people - and children in particular - the opportunity and freedom to be creative, inspired and express themselves in a way that is totally innocent. Why do we need poetry? Why do we need hope? We need something that lifts us out of the ordinary and suggests promises, dreams or ideas that we may never have considered or have forgotten in childhood.

We need to be able to laugh at ideas that are unusual or eccentric or just fun. We don't want to have to settle for the boring, mundane or mediocre.