shewhomust | Where the Seaton Sluice sand dunes roll down to the sea...

Since it's my birthday, I got to choose what we did today. I asked to go to the seaside, and that

durham_rambler and D. should between them make the rest of the decisions and surprise me.

They elected to go to Seaton Sluice and eat fish and chips at the Harbour View - no great surprise, we have been there before, and like it. The surprise was that it isn't open on a Sunday, so we went to the King's Arms instead:

It's not as superlative, but the fish and chips are perfectly adequate, and there's a view from the window across the harbour, along the coast to Blyth and inland north to the Cheviot (which, after yesterday's 'April showers', was topped with snow). After lunch, D. set off for home, and

durham_rambler and I went for a walk on the beach.

The tide was high, and the beach was busy: lots of people with dogs, a pair of horse riders, someone flying a kite. We stood for a while and watched four surfers out beyond the breakers never quite scrambling onto their boards. I tried to take a photograph, an arrangement that pleased me of black stone, yellow sand, creamy white foam: but wave after wave came in and retreated, never quite close enough to my stone. Finally, a wave (it could have been the seventh, I wasn't counting) spread its lacy border so far and so fast that I not only didn't catch my photo, I had to back off in haste to avoid being soaked - and when it retreated, it took my stone with it. So that was that.

We walked back through the dunes. Suddenly, the blackthorn is in flower -

- more than in flower, it's very nearly in leaf, too.

Nearly home, we called in on F., who gave us tea and conversation and home made cheese scones, still warm.