Tuesday - On the beach

Jesus Christ alive! The tide's in! Flabberghastment is not a stage I normally find myself in but usually you park up, walk onto the beach, keep walking, walk some more, walk some more. Lunch. Walk some more and then reach the water. At least you assume it's the water as it's now too dark to see.

No so today. Park, beach water! There's not even a full beach.

Honest to God, the tide is in.

Erect tented village! Sun tent goes up, cool bags and dog go in tent, wind break one goes up, as does wind break two. Family hunker down. Paperbacks are opened and iPods are fired up. The last thing you want to have to do on a family holiday is talk to one another - that's what long car journeys are for.

We came for an hour and stayed all day. this meant that we had neglected to bring enough sandwiches. Luckily the beach kiosk was on hand. I braced myself and ordered bacon sandwiches and chips. Delicious! The chips crisp and firm, the bacon griddled to perfection and the bread - white! This was indeed living, with no wholemeal in sight.

Interesting to see a top inch of groyn peeking up over the sand - does this mean a short groyn or, more likely, four feet of groyn below the sand. Also on the beach - an eerily well maintained pill-box. The bloody thing looks new, I swear I could make out the barrel of a Vickers water-cooled 'fritz-masher', capable of turning an entire coach party of hun into vapour at the pull of a trigger!