Preparation and planning

 The fact that there were 16 severe weather warnings in place for the UK did not deter us from the plan to spend part of my beautiful and oh so patient wife's 40th at the seaside. Neither did the horizontal rain put us off as we headed to the coast, the forecast said that between 15.10 and 16.25 there was a 83% chance of a ray of sunshine. Admittedly this was for a different beach to the one we were actually heading towards, I got it mixed up in my mixed up head (I was tired, up til 2am wrapping) but the odds were that at some point in the afternoon the rain would stop and the sun shine, summer at last.
So with several other bedraggled and wet families we took shelter in a dodgy greasy spoon and drank luke warm tea or coca cola and watched the sky. Sure enough at 15.00 a crack in the grey sky appeared and revealed an azure blue heaven. The mass exodus from the chippie was a sight to behold, only topped by watching fat dads (not me) running towards the briny discarding clothing en route to their compulsory dip in the ice cold and very choppy ocean. Luckily paramedics were on standby to assist those having coronaries or hypothermia while the RNLI picked up those that drifted out of their depth and protecting the largest from the Japanese Whaler anchored offshore. Pretty soon we had the beach to ourselves, save for the odd lost mongrel dog and what looked like part of a set from a Spielberg film.

 Turns out that this is what you can get up in your spare time given enough drift wood and lottery funding, but is was an interesting feature in an otherwise unspoilt nature reserve.

And as part of Tracey's birthday present was memories, watching yours truly coax little t over the strange construction added a certain something to the day, as did his eating sand, running off to catch mongrel dog, crying at being stopped from keeping mongrel dog, changing my mobile phone to Russian and point blank refusing to restore it to its original settings, me losing my glasses and the look on my face when served the worst fish and chips ever. In all the 45 minutes of sunshine made the day even more special, but had it poured with rain we would still have had a fun day, and now we know the beach is only just over an hour from HQ we plan to make a return visit. With a few dogs.