Chef Elliott Osborn cooking scallops and lobsters at the Celebration of the Sea event. (0843052)

I WAS probably tempting providence last week when I wrote about weather forecasting and the effect a relatively rough sea had on the autumn flower and produce show.

I say that because the weather had affected all manner of things almost continuously since then and it makes people like me acknowledge yet again the debt we owe those who provide our lifeline sea services with Guernsey and, to a lesser extent – although important to our tourist industry – with Jersey.

Two major events in Sark’s tourism calendar – the Celebration of the Sea day and the Sark 10 run – were affected last weekend and although the cancellation of the Manches Iles Express from Jersey did affect the number of people who arrived, thankfully the disruption did not force either to be cancelled.

The run started just a little late and appeared to this very much non-athlete type – in common with most people here I amble rather than walk – to have been a staged start with the more able runners bringing up the rear.

I haven’t received the results yet but they will appear in a future column.

Because some intending participants didn’t make the journey – even the Sark Shipping services were a bit lumpy, I’m told, and a number were expected from Jersey – the number of entrants appeared to be well down on previous years but the groups I saw seemed happy that they’d made the trip.

From the start near La Seigneurie I walked through the lanes of the north end of the island to the Celebration of the Sea and although there was little in the way of activity outside, the marquees were full of visitors and residents enjoying the fare on offer.

I don’t know whether they were waiting for food or simply admiring the culinary skills of chef Elliott Osborn but there was a goodly crowd around where he was busy barbecuing lobsters and scallops – and very appetising they looked.

Elsewhere, wool (from Sark sheep) was being spun, locally-made pottery, jewellery and the products of other crafts and skills were also on offer, as were things being sold in aid of various charities – notably, and appropriately, given that it was a Celebration of the Sea, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the stall manned as always by members of the seemingly indefatigable Adams family.

It’s always a shame when the efforts of the very many people who put on events such as the Celebration of the Sea and the Sark 10 run are affected by weather disruption but, as some say when the newspapers and fresh produce don’t appear on shop shelves because boats haven’t been able to dock, the waves rule us, rather than vice versa.

Last week, someone lent me a copy of a National Geographic article published in July 1932 by La Dame, Sibyl Hathaway, and written less than three years after her wedding to Robert Hathaway.

The article runs to almost 20 pages – along with more than that number of photographs – and provides a fascinating insight to how La Dame viewed her rights and responsibilities, although on reflection that perhaps should read responsibilities and rights.

In the last paragraph Dame Sibyl assures readers that she and her husband were determined ‘to do all we can to maintain the ancient traditions and the laws and customs which have made Sark what it is in this hustling 20th century – a little feudal paradise of peace and quiet, where “the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest”’.

I wonder what she would make of the Sark of today.

* The email address for comment is fallesark@sark.net