Surfin'

I felt a desperate need to take exercise this morning. Bossman felt a desperate need to walk around a supermarket. As supermarket and beach are in close proximity, we combined the two. Although it was only 9am, parking in the sun was out of the question, so we took advantage of the shade and the lavs in the Consum carpark before donning sunglasses and bowling hats and walking down to the beach. I have seen people creep down to hotel pools to claim the best sunbeds with their towel before creeping back up for a lie-in followed by a leisurely breakfast, but I hadn't realised that it happened on beaches too. As we walked along the edge of the water, there were dozens of unoccupied deck chairs, each accompanied by an upright but furled umbrella. There were only two heads bobbing in the water, so it dawned on me that the chair owners had been out to stake their claim to sit with their feet in the sea at some much earlier hour. But how early? This beach is cleaned every morning by machine; a monster that digs sand up at the front, grinds it through gratings, then sieves it through mesh to remove litter, seaweed, fag ends, loose coins and diamond rings. Does the driver have to dodge around these chairs in the same way that the mechanical roadsweeper has to dodge around the cars parked on the street for the month's duration of their owner's holiday? Bossman enjoyed his paddle, so maybe tomorrow we shall venture out at an early hour and find out.