Redcar Beach

Wrrr ... hot eh? Surely it can't get any worse. The cats have been like reclining statues all day, splayed out on any shady bit of concrete or linoleum or parquet floor. They do move around from time to time but not so much that you would notice. Edera was muttering something about buying a portable air conditioning unit for me to use upstairs but they are probably sold out already.

We never had these kinds of problems when I was a kid. A few times in the summer we'd catch the train down to Redcar or Saltburn and cower behind a wind break on the beach admiring the steelworks on the headland and building sand castles with our gloves on until the tide turned and we could go home without loss of face. That was our 'holidays'. Heatstroke was never a problem on the Yorkshire coast; sales of solar topees to guard against sunstroke are infrequent where I come from.

Actually it was considered rather cissy in our family to admit to liking the 'seaside' as my grandfather scornfully referred to it. The 'seaside' was where 'townies' went on boozy day trips, real men liked the mountains and moors and cold showers. Perhaps this was because there aren't so many really nice places along the north east coast of England. At Castle Eden Dene for example, said to be once a famous beauty spot, we spent about a century tipping coal slack from a local mine into the sea. It didn't do much for the look of the place but one good thing was that it was easy to make a fire if you got too cold while enjoying the sea air. Everything you needed except matches could be found right there ...

What do I mean , "'if' you got too cold?" Once you got down to the beach you got a good fire going fast, it was your only hope of survival.

Anyway, I had a good laugh tonight. Surfing around on 'Redcar' on the internet I see a local resident's group in the town is objecting to a big offshore 'wind farm' because the turbines will 'spoil the view'

Run that one by me again ...