High Tide	03:15 (2.40m)
Low Tide	09:04 (0.80m)
High Tide	15:21 (2.40m)
Low Tide	21:47 (0.50m)

Sea temperature: not taken
Sea conditions: small waves, low water with a shallow trough to wade through
Weather: sunny and crisp, no frost but a chilly NE breeze 
Joined by: Sara and The Poet
Topics of conversation:
Is the Pirate posh? The Pirates' Wife and I had had an very amusing conversation yesterday about her oven, which led to many definitions of posh. It all arose because she has a wonderful service, which is essential in a household with many cooks, all of whom use the cooker; they have an oven valet who come to the house once every few years and returns their oven to a shiny, new looking, pristine state. He comes in a shiny van too, in the back there are baths of various cleaning solutions, into which he dips all the removable elements. During our conversation she did think she saw smoke coming from the van, and we speculated that perhaps he just rebuilds people's cookers in the back of the van so the he can cook his own lunch, but it was just a cleaning process taking place. In case this sounds like an invaluable service to anyone else here's their website: http://www.ovenu.co.uk. 
The Pirate had misunderstood a text I'd later sent to his wife - he thought I'd said he is the poshest person I know and accosted me on the way to the beach saying that it couldn't possibly be true as I went to "The Ladies Cheltenham College" as he put it, and am married to an old colonial (more of which later). In fact what I had actually said was that he is the poshest Pirate I know, which is quite another thing altogether. 
The posh chat then led us to talk about clothing, Mertz wears proper shirts, often linen, with collars and cuffs all the time - even when we were in Thailand. I've tried to get him to wear long sleeved t-shirts or base layers, at least under jumpers, but when I gave him some for Christmas he had to ask what they were. When I told him they were to wear under jumpers he looked even more confused and said "do you mean jerseys?", whilst I think this is archaic The Pirate informed me that it's just being specific and anyway he calls them 'pullovers' so I'm obviously not as posh as either of them. I confirmed this by telling him about this list: things-posh-people-like and as he admitted to wearing red trousers he certainly qualifies.

Pasture

Today is May Day or Beltaine and I had taken the grazing route to the beach in case it's my last chance as the cattle are traditionally moved to summer pasture on this day as it's equidistant between the spring and summer equinoxes. DK was bemused by my admission to having had the Beltane face wash in the morning dew, and when the Pirate began to sing a traditional May song he almost wandered off altogether. The Pirate's Wife had been up at dawn to dance in at Geldiston Locks, so I'm not the only tree hugging nitwit. We filled DK in on the whole background to the festival and now he's concerned that The Pirates Wife was taking part in some seriously dubious fertility ceremony, rather than celebrating new life by dancing around dressed in white with some twigs... oh, OK, I see how that could happen now.
We all hollered and squealed as we went into the glorious water regardless, so it seems that the giddiness of Beltane got to us all. I still haven't got back into putting my head underwater yet though and The Pirate said that he always used to get his kids to do that from May 1st. He told us about a game he used to play to make it impossible not to get your head wet called 'bag of rubbish'; he'd pick them up in the water and say "what a big bag of rubbish! Let's throw it away!" chucking them as far as he could. They are all too big now but we reckon that no. 1 son could probably return the favour now as he's all big and strong.
Our 2 person film club resumes today and we are going to see To the Wonder, Sara and The Poet may join us there but when he suggested we meet for a drink I declined as Babs and I have our routine, now I feel terribly antisocial - sorry Poet.