Another glorious, sunny day

in Southwold, yesterday. We have been so lucky with the weather for the past two weeks. For a month before we began this holiday, we'd both watched the forecasts for this area and were not expecting anything as good as this.

View from Gun Hill Kiosk

We'd both felt very tired on Wednesday but, after a good night's sleep, we were looking forward to a day on the beach. The promised weather was for wall-to-wall sunshine. We certainly had that.

We used the Gun Hill Beach Kiosk as our base for the day, leaving it at lunchtime and returning afterwards to the very parking place we'd left an hour before.

As we walked, Ron interacted with many dogs. At one point, he joined a large dog who was retrieving a ball from the sea. Ron is such a little chap - but fast. He reached the ball first a number of times but was thrown completely over as the waves rolled over him. He wasn't to be disuaded and had to be put back on lead to stop him taking possession of the other dog's ball.

From then on, he was obsessed by the sea. He barked at it when it was too noisy and ran into it looking for imaginary quarry.

Beach cricket beside the harbour

Our walk was a leisurely stroll towards the harbour, and calling at the kiosk in the Harbour Car park for a late morning cuppa. We really shouldn't have bothered, the tea and coffee were not good. Either the milk or use of urn-simmered water made it taste terrible.

Throughout our walk, we saw many family groups enjoying the warm, sunny weather. One parent told us the children were taking a couple of days extra holiday ahead of Half-Term break which begins tomorrow.

We left the Harbour kiosk and headed back to the beach. As we crossed the dunes, I spotted another vista with Southwold Lighthouse visible at the end of a track through the vegetation.

On our return to Gun Hill, we rested on a bench until it was time to leave for lunch.

We lunched at Coasters (number 3 on TripAdvisor's recommended Restaurants. Ron was allowed into the restaurant and had a share of both lunches.

MWNN selected two starters; bacon melt, and king prawns in tempura batter.

I didn't fancy beer-battered fish again, so I opted for a rib-eye steak. I couldn't make much impact into the hearty helping of chips though. I really think I'm all chipped-out.

After lunch, we returned to our spot on the beach, set up our folding chairs, and settled down for a relaxing hour watching the comings and goings of various family groups on the beach.

The sun was lower in the sky, but it was still warm enough for shirt-sleeves.

The beach was still full of people. At one of the Royal Beach Huts (Charles), a very new-born baby was being introduced to the joys of the beach. Further along, towards the Harbour, a man was searching the beach with a metal detector.

A family group had setttled down on the shore-line and was fishing. The teenage boys attached to the group were skimming pebbles, the younger girls watching the sea and the sky.

Tea-time approached. I was keen to partake of an Alder Tree ice cream.  MWNN suggested we drove down to the Pier to have our ice-creams from the kiosk there. I had a strawberry cone from the Curlew and MWNN had a soft ice cream  from Buckets and Spades' Ice Cream Parlour.

We sat at a picnic table on the Promenade and chatted to a couple with a beautiful GSD who reminded us of Kilo.



By now, the breeze had picked up and the temperature chilling down. We packed into the car and returned to the Headmaster's House, once again having had a wonderful, restorative day.