![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A grand day out
Aug. 15th, 2016 08:51 pmIt's August and it's a Bank Holiday (not in the UK, admittedly, but we're all Francophiles here): we went to the beach.
Admittedly, that wasn't the original plan: we had meant to go out yesterday, but![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler spent much of the day rescuing one of our sites which had fallen over under attack from some bot in Ukraine. Going out today instead was no great hardship, but the museum we had planned to visit is closed on Mondays - so instead we went to Alnmouth.
We must have arrived when the tide was at its lowest. The beach was busy with families, and dogs, and one or two kites, but there was plenty of room for all of us. I pointed out todurham_rambler that two of the children were wearing actual wetsuits, and their mother, a large woman in an orange swimming costume, told me: "Liodl. £12.99. We're holidaying in England this year." Good for them! We paddled in the shallows round into the mouth of the Aln, then back, and headed into the village for lunch (generously filled crab sandwiches at the Tea Cosy Tea Shop) and shopping: a nose around the At Old School Gallery, actual purchases at a shop whose name I didn't notice (I coveted David Hall*'s cormorant, and actually bought a book of his puffin pictures, because puffins!)
By the time we returned to the car, the tide had risen substantially, and the beach was a fraction of its former self. We returned via Alnwick, where Barter Books accepted the entirety of the two boxes of books we had brought: this has never happened to us before. What's more, there's a garage behind the bookshop which dealt with the amber light warning us the the oil was low, by the simple expedient of putting some oil in the engine. On the way home, we were a bit slow turning off the radio after the news, and found Geoff Ryman talking to us about Herland. That was unexpected.
All in all, a good day out. We should get out more.
*Checking his website now, I think I've admired his work before - surely I recognise that frog?
Admittedly, that wasn't the original plan: we had meant to go out yesterday, but
durham_rambler spent much of the day rescuing one of our sites which had fallen over under attack from some bot in Ukraine. Going out today instead was no great hardship, but the museum we had planned to visit is closed on Mondays - so instead we went to Alnmouth.We must have arrived when the tide was at its lowest. The beach was busy with families, and dogs, and one or two kites, but there was plenty of room for all of us. I pointed out to
durham_rambler that two of the children were wearing actual wetsuits, and their mother, a large woman in an orange swimming costume, told me: "Liodl. £12.99. We're holidaying in England this year." Good for them! We paddled in the shallows round into the mouth of the Aln, then back, and headed into the village for lunch (generously filled crab sandwiches at the Tea Cosy Tea Shop) and shopping: a nose around the At Old School Gallery, actual purchases at a shop whose name I didn't notice (I coveted David Hall*'s cormorant, and actually bought a book of his puffin pictures, because puffins!)By the time we returned to the car, the tide had risen substantially, and the beach was a fraction of its former self. We returned via Alnwick, where Barter Books accepted the entirety of the two boxes of books we had brought: this has never happened to us before. What's more, there's a garage behind the bookshop which dealt with the amber light warning us the the oil was low, by the simple expedient of putting some oil in the engine. On the way home, we were a bit slow turning off the radio after the news, and found Geoff Ryman talking to us about Herland. That was unexpected.
All in all, a good day out. We should get out more.
*Checking his website now, I think I've admired his work before - surely I recognise that frog?
