Larking by Janet Clare

Did you know 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 there is 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, her family and she have collected hundreds of tiny pieces of china from broken tea sets, putting them for safe keeping in their pockets until they get home to be washed and admired.

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