The Christmas Rose

After a hearty Christmas lunch, I made the most of a bright, clear, calm frosty afternoon to take a little exercise and walk to the end of my street to view the estuary. The tide was rising and the channels between the sandbanks were filling up.

And then my eye caught something small in the water.

Can you see it? A speck in the water in the lower left third of the picture
Let's zoom in a little...

There it is... it looks like a flower, doesn't it, still in its decorative wrapper

Oh yes, it's a rose. A rose in the sea, on Christmas afternoon. What a puzzle.

According to local gossip, a swain from the village had taken his sweetheart for a stroll along the beach after breakfast. Apparently he pulled a single red rose from under his jacket, proudly presented it to her and said: "Darling, will you marry me?".

It seems that the girl snatched the bloom from his hand. "I don't want your wretched rose" she shrieked, "we're through"!

And she threw it out into the sea, and stormed off home.

The search and rescue services are still trying to locate his body.