The young Hermites and adult helpers who cleaned up Belvoir Beach. (Picture: Lesley Bailey, 0946783)

FOR the Herm children, the Easter holidays aren’t just about chocolate and bunnies. On a wild and windy afternoon last week, several of the younger Hermites braved the hailstones and gales to clean up Belvoir for the start of the season.

The children clean this bay up twice a year as part of the Marine Conservation Society’s Beachwatch and Adopt-A-Beach schemes.

Five of the schoolchildren took part, and were joined by three-year-old Ffion Jones, two-year-old Alfie Pimblett and a few grown-up helpers.

‘The high tide had reached the top of Belvoir the day we did the clean,’ said organiser Lesley Bailey, ‘and although on first glance the beach looked clean, we were all surprised with how much rubbish we found.’

Most of the holidaymaker-related rubbish was cleared away at the end of September, so everything found this time had washed up on the sand over the winter months.

As usual, the majority of the rubbish was many pieces of unidentifiable broken plastic bits. The rest was mostly fishing related.

According to the 2009 Beachwatch results, of the 33 Channel Island beaches that regularly take part, litter originating from the public accounted for 36% of all litter found and 18% was from fishing. So Belvoir is certainly typical of all the other local beaches.

Within the whole of the Channel Islands last year, an average of 949 litter items per kilometre was recorded, which is half as much as the UK average.

The plan had also been to clear Shell Beach, but by the time the group had trekked round there, the wind was blowing up quite a sandstorm, so they found a sheltered spot behind the beach cafe to picnic on some well-earned cupcakes.

On Easter Sunday, the White House guests braced themselves for the usual rampage of chocolate-crazed children taking part in the annual Easter egg hunt.

After a rough week, the sunshine finally made an appearance, drawing the usual participants over from Guernsey, as well as those already on the island.

This year’s hunt, as well as the customary little foil-wrapped eggs, also included lots of tiny pink-wrapped bunnies, one larger egg, and special vouchers for little cakes from the Ship.

The taking part is always as much fun as the finding, and everyone went away happy and full of sugar.