Summer's Last Hurrah................

So summer reappeared for a brief encore this weekend. The sun shone from cloudless, blue skies, temperatures soared, and it was hard to believe we're almost into the third week in October.

We should have gone camping, taking advantage of the weather and the last few weeks before many campsites close for the season.

Instead yesterday we re-felted the shed roof. An unglamourous, but essential task involving cold bitumen and several yards of mineral felt.

However, today the sun continued to shine so we packed a picnic lunch into the campervan, and along with small dog, set off to an unspoilt bit of beach to find a geocache.

This was no ordinary cache..........it's title "Wait For No Man" gave a clue to it's location, on top of a groyne post only accessible at low tide. In fact the cache itself is elsewhere, only the final coordinates are on top of the post so it's a two-part clue.

We arrived and parked up an hour or so before low tide, so sat on the shingle, enjoying lunch and watching small dog amass a veritable mound of treasure, including a seagull feather, bit of old seaweed and a large shell with a hole in it. Having deposited these finds by our chairs she then stretched out in the sun for a nap.

As low tide point neared, we set off across the beach to the groyne we thought carried the clue, only to find that the base of the posts was still under water, rendering them unreachable without either waders or beach shoes, neither of which we had.

Small dog, unleashed, was mooching around the sand, when suddenly she disappeared from view, having accidentally strayed into a suddenly, deep pool. She resurfaced and valiantly struck out for land, a mere three frantic doggy paddle strokes away, a look of complete shock and surprise on her face. Once out of the pool she insisted on having her lead re-attached and sat forlornly, shivering and whimpering.

Perfectionist partner had to decide whether to get wet, or trudge back along the shingle to retrieve wellingtons from the campervan. As the top of the groyne post was 10 feet above the beach, to get to it involved a climb up barnacle and seaweed encrusted wooden spars, which looked very precarious and in any case we had no way of getting to it from dry land. Eventually, the returning tide took the decision out of our hands and we left clueless, vowing to return another day with proper equipment.

However, despite leaving empty handed, it was a lovely afternoon, although it took some time for small dog to recover from her traumatic dunking.

Anyhoo, here's a shot of the beach this afternoon, and another of small dog before her impromptu swim..............