High Tide	03:10 (2.50m)
Low Tide	09:44 (0.70m)
High Tide	16:10 (2.20m)
Low Tide	21:38 (1.10m)

Sea temperature: 5.5 degrees
Sea conditions: perfect
Weather: icy, a little dusting of snow still remaining from last night's flurry
Joined by: Abs, The Photographer, Blake, BooBob, Mertz
Topics of conversation:
Welcome back Abs! For various reasons Abs hasn't been able to join us recently so it was lovely to see her back and she had chosen the perfect day for her return. Although it was so cold that the shingle had frozen solid and the dunes were as hard as concrete the sun shone over the cloud bank just as we began to get undressed.

Going in

Coming out - taken by Mertz as they joined us

The Killing - I made DK swear he wouldn't tell; we missed the final 2 episodes last night, he kept teasing me with suggestions, it was unbearable. I'm almost tempted to put the day's plans to one side to watch now, but the weather is so glorious that it would be churlish and I don't think I'd be popular. I just wish that I hadn't gone onto Facebook this morning to wish a friend happy birthday as The Killing is one of my 'follows' and it did give a little something away. The reason I missed it was that we had the worst meal I've eaten in ages. A group of us went to The Harbour Inn in Southwold last night and it was shocking, truly shocking. The dover sole was so badly cooked that I couldn't get the fish of the bone on one side and it was almost raw on the other. We all tried Mertz's squid with chorizo and some people had to spit it out it was so bad. The haddock chowder seemed to have been made with condensed milk and the potatoes were new and overcooked, in December. They failed to clear our plates after the first course but in an attempt to salvage the meal The Wolf ordered a bakewell tart thinking you can't go far wrong with that... you can! He couldn't even get his spoon through it. To make things worse The Wolf had had reason to send food back last week as they had fish pie that was cold in the middle, so he felt duty bound to give a discreet but full report of our disaster to the Manager (we weren't charged for the sole or the wine). It's such a shame as it's run by the same team who run our local The Bell and we gave up eating there some months ago too. We'd cycled over and as we left the wind and snow/sleet was lashing in but fortunately we had the wind behind us on the river bank on the way home. It wasn't quite as extreme as being on a sled in a blizzard in - 40 but I can't say it was enjoyable. I was stupid to have eaten that fish which I could get off the bone and had a horrible night with little sleep as a result, but that's the wonderful about these morning swims, however bad you feel when you get up you always feel better after a swim. The difficulty is getting dressed quickly enough to keep your fingers working, and whilst my wonderful gloves, bough for Arctic adventures, are toasty warm they are quite hard to get on if I haven't dried my hands properly!

Swearing quietly