Danes Dyke Surprise!

Wake at seven and breakfast on smoked salmon and cream cheese on rye toast with black coffee. It's cool and cloudy outside again, but the garden has enjoyed the rain. Shower and dress and drive to Cherry for nine o'clock, collect the dogs, and then head for the Westwood. We walk round our usual route with two elderly, but sprightly, ladies and their dogs. One of them turns out to have been a childhood friend of Felicity and passes on her best wishes. After dropping the dogs off, I collect Louis from Sarah's house, and we set off for North Landing at Flamborough Head, about thirty miles away. We are less than three miles from our destination when Louis insists he needs a wee and needs it right now. Fortunately we are passing Danes Dyke, a nature reserve, and I pull in and park there. Danes Dyke was not built by the Danes, but probably by iron age farmers before Roman times. A natural ravine and water course was extended manually to provide a defensive line across the headland of Flamborough. After Louis has relieved himself we stop and have lunch on a picnic table by the little cafe. Louis has never had a Cornish pasty, so I get the lady to heat two up for us in the microwave, and break the news to her that the governments pasty tax is repealed. After Lunch I show Louis the nature trail, and tell him there is a big surprise at the end of it. We contour up and down the sides of the ravine on the pathways, passing wild flowers and bees collecting nectar, here and there are wooden carvings of horse chestnut, ash and hawthorn leaves. The big secret, of course is that the nature trail leads to a small pebble beach that opens on Bridlington Bay. Louis is delighted, he loves the seaside, and there are a couple of families with children about his age already there. In a trice he has taken off his clothes and is paddling in the cold North Sea. It's not cold today, but the sky is cloudy, still he is happy, all children really need is somewhere to play and other kids to play with. It's not possible to build sandcastles here as there is no sand, the tide is in, but we can build a castle of stone. We select large flat pebbles and build a cairn about three feet high. One of the families puts up a little tent and Louis moves in with them for a while, he asks me to take his picture on my phone, which I do, and then to play an audio book of the "Ugly Duckling", that he and the other kids listen to for ten minutes or so, Unbeknown to me, I find he has used the phone to take my photo, whilst I thought he was listening to the story. Later we find a water logged branch and push it out to sea, and then pretend it is a U-boat and bomb it with pebbles. The other kids have to leave around three thirty, so Louis and I make our way back on the path up the other side of the ravine. When we get back to the car we complete the remaining two miles of our journey to North Landing and play in the sea caves for a while, but the main attraction, the fishing boat trips to the bird sanctuary at Bempton Cliffs, are not running today. We leave after an hour and drive a few miles up the coast to Filey, where we eat fish and chips at Ingham's Cafe. We both clear our plates, and then drive back over the lovely Yorkshire Wolds, Louis soon falls asleep in his car seat, and it is with some regret that I wake him when we arrive at Sarah's. We have had a good day.