Larking by Janet Clare

Did you known that the River Thames is tidal through London? The muddy foreshore that is revealed at low tide is home to long-lost buried treasure, medieval tiles, glass bottles, coins, clay pipes and hundreds of ceramic chips from long-broken tea sets.

The searching for these fragments is called intertidal archaeology, but, in the UK, we have a much more romantic name for it: ‘larking’. You can ‘lark’ anywhere and Janet does! In her garden, on dog walks, at the beach and over the years, Janet and her family have collected hundreds of tiny pieces of china from broken tea sets, putting them for safe keeping in our pockets until they get them home to be washed and admired.

Janet just love the patterns, colours and the glimpses into past lives these larked, once mundane treasures offer. What stories they could tell us!