Low Tide	00:35 (0.70m)
High Tide	07:26 (2.20m)
Low Tide	13:09 (1.00m)
High Tide	19:08 (2.20m)

Sea temperature: not taken
Sea conditions: terrible, rough with large destructive waves
Weather: still blowing a gale
Joined by: The Poet
For the third day in a row The Pirate and I have not been in and DK and The Poet have braved it out but spent around 20 seconds battling the waves and the Undertoad before admitting defeat. It's been ghastly. I've not got long before I go away and I NEED to get back in the water, if only to feel alive enough to cope with the journey. We discussed Pond Life again as DK gave The Pirate a copy for his birthday and I was reminded of the sense of doom and despair that he describes as taking him over when he hadn't swum for a few days as I mooched home. Although I'm not really in the mood for travels at the moment I shall be glad to get some warmth into my bones.
Alan Bennet - I'd had a friend staying last night and we'd been to see the NT Live production of People and seen The Poet there. Whilst she and I had left singing "downtown" at the tops of our voices we all found it a rather peculiar play.

Frances de la Tour was exceptional, as always, but we felt grateful for her candour in the preceding interview when she talked about the way in which Bennett had structured some of the language. "People don't talk like that" she had said to him, to which his response was "It's called STYLE". There was a sense of style over substance in the second act, in fact it almost felt like 2 plays. The first being in his usual framework of social comment through English eccentricity with elements of humour creeping in, but by the time we settled into the second act it all went to hell in a handbasket with what can only be described as farce. I struggled with that.
People - NT Live
The tide has taken away part of the beach and we now have a shingle cliff below the huts. It would be very dangerous to swim there at high tide, as the drop is more than a man deep. It has happened before, a couple of winters ago, when the chestnut paling fence was taken out to sea and it's always a reminder of the power of the water.

 Mabel wasted no time in finding the warmest spot on the beach this morning: