Father's Day in Hornsea. (Sunday June 16th)

Norman wakes me at six thirty and tells me that he really needs to use the garden, so I get up and let him out, to a clear, sunny morning. After relieving himself, he sprints into the kitchen and I give him some Baker's in his bowl and then go back to bed. I am awoken at eight by the phone, it is my cousin Michael, ringing from Erlangen, in Germany. We chat for twenty minutes, but the line is bad, so he says he will call back next week. He wants me to fly over in October and go walking again in the Alps. After he has rung off' I fry kippers for breakfast and then eat them in the garden, sitting in bright sunshine. As they are Normy's favourites, I save half a fillet for him and then we sit for a while, I drinking coffee and Norman taking in the rays, lying on his side. Out of curiosity, I check flights to Munich in October, and if I book early, it could be done for less than £100 return but that is just the flights. After a shower, I dress in shorts and a polo shirt and walk Norman round the village, on our way back we bump into Betty and Nellie, her schnauzer, going the other way and firm up on the arrangements for her to look after Norman for the second half of my holiday in July. We arrange to walk the dogs together on Wednesday, so that Normy can get used to her and Nelly. After we arrive home, I drive to Saint John's for ten thirty mass and leave Normy with Sarah. She, Richard and the children are still eating a late full English breakfast and  Louis is back to his usual, larger than life, boisterous self. We all have a good sing at Mass and we even try hard with the final hymn, which is a modern tune, that nobody likes very much. Afterwards, I collect Norman and firm up with Sarah on the arrangements for Father's Day, we are going to Hornsea, for an afternoon on the beach and then we are having a fish and chip tea at Sullivan's. Sarah collects me at one and we are on Hornsea beach by a quarter past, it is a little over ten miles from my house. Hornsea is a nice little seaside town, with a steep pebbly beach, and soggy, black, wooden tidebreaks, every hundred yards, and stretching away to the north towards Bridlington Bay. There is also a large lake, Hornsea Mere, a quarter of a mile inland, where there is a sailing club. We park on a side street, less than a hundred yards from the beach and quickly make our way there. Although it is Father's Day, it is also a Louis seaside day and he has brought his football and four little yellow plastic cones, to indicate the goalposts. It is almost high tide, so the beach is narrow, and slopes steeply to the sea, at an angle of fifteen to twenty degrees or so. Within five minutes, the ball has rolled into the sea, so I have to remove my sandals in order to retrieve it. Unfortunately this means that I have to walk across the rough pebbles in my soft, bare feet and it is not a pleasant experience. We persevere for half an hour, but after the umpteenth recovery of the ball from the briny, I have had enough. My ball control isn't brilliant and Louis's is worse yet, so we build a castle instead, but out of pebbles, scouring the beach for large, flat ones. Me trying to remember how to build a dry stone wall, from a memory of an old dalesman, showing me, when I was stationed at the Royal Signals training centre in Catterick, all of forty years ago. Anyway it keeps Louis amused, and gradually our pebble castle rises from the beach, looking exactly like a cairn, which is what it actually is. Louis keeps breaking off from the construction work for a paddle, but brings a few more pebbles, each time he returns. The weather is fine and warm, the sun occasionally breaking through the low cloud. Sarah and Alice seem happy sitting on their blanket, watching the sea and the trickle of other day trippers, who wander across our bit of beach, occasionally bringing me a polystyrene cup of tea. Louis' excursions into the sea grow ever more daring and his mother is getting stressed, but I tell her to relax, I can be in and fish him out within seconds, if he slips or gets washed out to sea. He can swim well enough to stay afloat for five minutes, although the North Sea at this time of year is freezing. He does in fact eventually slip and go under, but quickly finds his feet again and gets back up. Eventually the water is too cold even for Louis and he runs to Sarah to be towelled dry and put on his clothes again. The castle/cairn is finished, it is not very high, standing about a metre tall, and I persuade Louis not to demolish it immediately, to see how long it might last. Above us, on the promenade, is a small cafe with tables and a paddling pool, so we adjourn there for half an hour. In the centre of the pool is an island and Louis decides to see how many times he can run round it, splashing some girls, who are also paddling quietly, as he does so. They get out of his way and as they pass me, I hear one say to the other, "boys are so annoying!" Louis, in full flow, certainly can be. At half past four, we make our way to Sullivan's, where they are doing a brisk trade, because of Father's Day. At a table behind us, a woman, about my age, is struggling with her elderly father, who has quite severe dementia. My heart goes out to them. It takes a while before the meals arrive and Louis is becoming bored and fidgety, despite threats of an epad ban from his mum, he finds it almost impossible to sit still, but eventually, mercifully, the meals arrive. The food is excellent and our appetites have been sharpened by an afternoon on the beach, so we all clear our plates. Once the meal is over, Louis begins to perform again. All six year old boys are easily bored, Louis more than most, he gets told off by me and receives a 3 day epad ban from his mum. Not wishing to inflict him further on the other diners, we leave the cafe and then take a slow walk along the promenade, our castle has been reduced to a smear of pebbles on the beach, a group of small boys are playing in incriminatingly close proximity. sittiing in the car while Sarah drives us home, Louis attempts to plea bargain his epad ban down to one day, but Sarah threatens him with a whole week unless he desists and he finally admits defeat. She tells me that Louis is much brighter than Clement was at his age, and he is about to enter the third year of an engineering masters degree at UCL. I hope Louis' attention span improves somewhat, as he gets older. When we arrive back in Tickton, I invite them in for coffee and a piece of the cheesecake that Sarah gave me for Father's Day, along with a nice bottle of Chateauneuf Du Pape. She declines, telling me that Louis is past his "sell by date", and needs to be taken home. I give her the cheesecake back, as I don't really have a sweet tooth, and as it will go off before it is eaten at my house. Indoors, Norman is waiting for his dinner, so after persuading him to go to the garden, I feed him a tin of dog food and settle down to read the last four chapter's of Patrick Gale's, "Rough Music". I finish it by nine thirty, a deeply satisfying book, although the content is disturbing. I like his writing and consider it better than Philip Roth's, his subjects are the English middle classes, rather than Roth's Jewish Americans, but his writing seems less self indulgent somehow, more nuanced and restrained, but perhaps that is just my English sensibility, or prejudice. To bed for ten.