High Tide	01:54 (2.20m)
Low Tide	07:26 (0.80m)
High Tide	13:55 (2.40m)
Low Tide	20:02 (0.70m)

Sea temperature: 10
Sea conditions: waves breaking out to sea, so coming in with less power
Weather: very breezy, little fluffy clouds
Joined by: Sara and The Poet, The Artist and The Light Entertainment
Topics of conversation:
The Pirate had finished reading The Boy With The Top Knot by Sathnam Sangera and was in that frame of mind one gets when finishing a book which has had you in its thrall; not knowing whether you are glad to have finished it or wanting to still be reading it. He had found it profoundly moving. There's a delightful short film by Sathnam here: http://www.sathnam.com
I have only just realised that I've read it too as it was first published in hardback as 'If You Don't Know Me By Now', no wonder it sounded so familiar when he first spoke of it. He now has Al Alvarez to look forward to as his finishing this means that Pond Life has gone up his list to No 2.
There was more chat about pink shoes, The Light Entertainment had been rather disappointed by the arrival of hers as they are really rather tasteful and chic, she was expecting something a little more garish. The Artist joined us but wasn't swimming, so there was no tap dance this morning, although there was singing, rather bad singing from all of us. We were trying to remember the name of a song which DK began, I'm not sure why he began it, something to do with the colour of the sky. It could have been the shoes, I wasn't really listening, but we couldn't work out the name of the song. The lyric goes through all the colours, which we did, badly, but still couldn't work out that it's called "Colours"! And it sounded nothing like that on the beach this morning.
DK's son and I had been to see Woodkid last night, it was even better than expected, but I've promised The Viking that I won't bang on about it as he couldn't come, so instead I'll mention the other unexpected pleasure of the evening. We found, totally be chance, a Japanese restaurant which neither of us had been to before. It certainly wasn't there when I lived in Norwich but it looked well established and they were very, very busy for a Monday night, there was one non-Asian couple there when we arrived but every other table was occupied by young, mainly Japanese groups. The food was perfect, I had a soft shelled crab dish which I could eat everyday. They have Sushi Night every Monday and Tuesday - all you can eat sushi for £24 a head, and having read the small print this morning they do a student discount on a Monday. I guess that could explain why it was so busy, but so could the standard of the food. Our bill was still only £26 for two and we couldn't have eaten any more. Actually we were glad we hadn't as we ended up having to run across town, having gone to the wrong venue, (reminder to self - trust instinct, don't always listen to other people when they say "it's not at the Royal it's at The Playhouse"), and one more salmon roe roll could have pushed me over the edge.
It was quite a gathering this morning and the cold breezed made us all huddle together - as we each got dressed we somehow seemed to gravitate towards The Pirate, who was still sitting on his stool, dressing at his pace. We realised we may have looked rather like a religious gathering, and all began intoning at him. In turn he replied with the sounds of Tibetan chants (or The QE2). What must we have looked like?

Warming up

I had been a little late down having spotted one of my favourite cars down by the harbour yesterday, it was still there this morning so I'm crossing my fingers that it may have been abandoned so that I can take possession. DK told us that John Barry had owned one in the 60's with a Maserati engine, it had cost £4000 then, so maybe this one isn't going spare, shame.