View from the loo

As I stumbled out of the tent towards the composting loo at 7. 20 am, what should I see but a veil of mist over the valley.
Hurrah! A blip! thought I,
but by the time I'd returned from the long drop box and fetched my camera from beside the still-sleeping CleanSteve, there was precious little mist left. So I played around with cows and skeletonised leaves instead.

Later, we had a 3-course breakfast and watched a family who were more energetic than us starting their game of cricket in the field at 9.30 am. Being remarkably free of co-ordination, I am eternally grateful that I did not grow up in a family where cricket, rounders, beach hockey, etc, were encouraged or even forced upon us. Just getting dressed was hard enough some days.

At around 10.25 we drove to the town of Kingsbridge, where CleanSteve was befriended by some old ladies in the local history resource centre, while I hung out with the younger dudes in the internet cafe/adventure shop. Then we got Steve's birthday present (wet weather trousers for blipping!) and set off for the beach, South Milton Sands.

It was intensely hot and I managed to go for two good swims without a wetsuit, and enjoyed watching all the families larking around in their inflatable dinghies. At some point I realised I'd never tried out the underwater facility of my camera, so I went back into the sea to take some shots, but was too chicken to dive beneath the waves, just in case the spec was wrong. Besides, my flesh was turning to chicken skin by then. So the shots came out rather unimpressive, as I'd had the underwater scene mode on, but wasn't under the water. How the feck does one swim underwater and take photos, anyway?

I never wanted to leave the beach, ever, but we went and got an ice cream and left, but not before CleanSteve had managed to blip a sparrowhawk! The family behind us on the beach had been complaining about the lack of wifi hotspots on the actual sands, adding for good measure, "even the mobile signal is poor". But a sparrrowhawk that close to the beach ... wow!

Then, back at the campsite, we packed up slowly and set off. The roads were without incident so we got back at about 10, having listened to a ridiculous 1970s BBC recording of a Lord Peter Wimsey murder mystery set in Kircudbright, complete with camp Scottish accents and plenty of "look here, old horse!" types of ejaculation. This is part of the joys of having discovered the cassette player in the car a mere five years after purchase, just as the charity shops have stopped selling cassettes!

So here's the view without much mist left, as viewed through the comic filter in photogene. You may have noticed by now that I use it to add texture to an image that would otherwise be a little lacking in the landscape department. Bigbury Bay is to the left, tantalisingly just out of shot.