High Tide	03:15 (2.10m)
Low Tide	08:38 (1.00m)
High Tide	15:15 (2.30m)
Low Tide	21:26 (0.80m)

Sea temperature: 10.2
Sea conditions: pleasant but a bit too choppy for proper swimming
Weather: Cool, sun and clouds
Joined by: The Usual suspects, it's getting to be such a big group that I need to cut and paste!
Topics of conversation:

Under Milk Wood - The Pirate, The Poet and The Light Entertainment are all involved in a production of the 'play for voices' in a couple of weeks and rehearsals are playing havoc with their social lives, but we are all hoping to support them in one way or another. The Pirate reckoned it should be re-christened Under Soya Milk Wood, whether that was a comment on the health obsessed village or the standard of the performance remains to be seen.
The Pirate was in good spirits this morning and "glad to be alive", we both agreed that this time of year is good for swimming, but that we need to be wary of staying in the water for too long and freezing our cores. The air is warming up but once the inner body is cold you have no hope.
Would I Lie to You? er.... lets not go there. DK had been asked to appear on the show and wasn't familiar with it. I'm not sure that the producers would be happy with our description but it was clear enough to him that he had made the right decision to let his brother go without him. Uncle Mike will be perfect, it's right up his street and DK can stay here, where he's comfy!
I recommended A Late Quartet which I'd seen last night, and enjoyed enormously. Admittedly there were some clunky moments but the premise is a good one and led to Babs and I discussing it all the way home, which is usually how we rate a film; if we can't stop talking about it for the 35 minute journey home then we've either loved it, hated it or been or been puzzled or incensed by it. I had known nothing about Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14, opus 131, a piece that is played non-stop, preferably with no notes as he requested. I'm not a sophisticated lover of classical music, god knows my dear friend Liz tried to introduce me many times, she even presented me with 40 tapes which she had recorded and made covers for, along with a thesis on each composer included, but I never allowed myself the time to sit and listen for long enough to appreciate the music. I never appreciated the hard work that she had put into it either,until it was too late to start afresh because by that time tape players were defunct, I still have the thesis, complete with her delightful descriptions of the composers such as "syphilitic womaniser with no money and bad taste in wigs". Having said that, being immersed in one work for the duration of the film hooked me and when I got home I played it very loud, in the dark. The audience was full of people who clearly knew a lot more than me but as one critic said: "It is cerebral, yes, it is best appreciated by people who are involved in some way with classical music even if that be solely as an audience, but the dynamics of this little 'community' of people drawn together by a lasting contract to rehearse and perform for the better part of their time and the effect of physical proximity and the risks of intellectual/artistic distances have rarely been so exquisitely painted." 
The Fall - a recent drama with Gillian Anderson in the lead role and a Met Office DS, I'd watched the first episode and regardless of the fact that  I enjoy psychological thrillers, horror films and Scandi noire, this had scared the living daylights out of me. It's one of those 'women as victim serial killer' shows, but with the added creepiness that you are introduced to the killer and his loving family early in the first episode. This means you watch him stalking, planning stalking and obsessing in minute detail and I found myself not wanting to walk the dogs in the dark, not a feeling I've ever had before. I shall not be watching.

We discussed the Alternative Limb Project, which produces prosthetic limbs with style and show that they don't have to be pink and uniform. My Grandmother refused to wear her first one when it arrived. She had had amazing legs, slim and defined, with great ankles and this thing was more like a tree trunk made from shiny plastic the colour of Germaline. She would have loved the designs by Sophia Oliviera Barata. There are some made to look like robotic arms and others with plants climbing up them. 

She creates bespoke limbs with skin that metamorphosises into what she calls 'other species' and some even have snakes coming from within the limb, then wrapping around it. She actually has a choice of 'real', 'unreal' and 'surreal', all of which are art.