Riley's, King Edward's Bay

It came to light quite far on in our relationship that neither the Minx nor I particularly enjoys staying at other people's houses. Indeed, in over ten years together, we have only ever stayed once or twice with my folks. We never discussed it, we just quietly avoided it.

Last night, though, we stayed at Janice and Chris's, and it was lovely. I mean, don't get me wrong, we're not converts: we've just found one place we like staying :-)

And for lunch, we were blessed with another sunny day, today, and Chris drove us all over to Tynemouth. We parked just outside the town centre and walked in, and then down to King Edward's Bay. Loads of people were enjoying the good weather, and we were treated to the novel sight of sauna tents.

Chris had booked us a beach table at Riley's, which is - quite rightly, as it turns out - celebrated for its seafood. It's fashioned from two shipping containers, which might be a little more obvious from my Extra. We sat in deckchairs to eat, which was actually a lot less difficult than you night imagine.

The Minx and I had to get away by three as I had a German lesson at five. While I was doing that, the Minx went to collect Hannah from a friend's house (she was in Kirkby Lonsdale this weekend for a wedding), and when my lesson was over, I walked down to meet them at Number 9 for a drink before we all went for a curry.