Bike, Beach and Birdy the Bagel Bandit

 

Bike, Beach and Birdy the Bagel Bandit                                      

Early this morning, Steve and I drove a few miles away from home; no more than five actually, where we have a favourite quite, undulating section of road where we used to live along time ago. We are warm enough in short sleeved bike shirts there, doing our workout even so early in the morning. We got a good few laps done and were packed up and home again in time for breakfast; if breakfast was something we ate; it isn’t. So we just had coffee once we were in.

We had planned to take the rest of the day easily apart from a bit of this and that about the house and garden. There is always a wash to get in the machine after a bike ride, but with all the exercise we do, more simply; there is always some washing to do. Steve suggested that I might like to do some sewing, and that is always an option. He knew that I wanted to finish the latest pair of summer pants that I needed to finish off. They were well on the way to completion having got all the machine work done. I quite often finish a garment with a little bit of embroidery somewhere, I generally finish trouser bottoms for myself in that way. The pants hems were already tacked up, as were the slits in the side of the lower legs. So that was what I set about doing; a long line of little French knots down the side of the splits to the ankle, all around the hem and back up the other side of the lower leg.

I had been listening to Classic FM, seated at the bay window at the front of the house while Steve got to work in the kitchen with some dividing and preparing of some newly delivered food items. While we were out cycling, we had left two packets of bagels on the work surface ready to slice in half, make a half turn to prevent them being difficult to part when the time came and put into freezer packs.

Our little black cat Birdy had the run of the house when we were out. She is a very fussy eater and doesn’t eat anything unless it is wet, either prepared in gravy or jelly or something. Sometimes when you present her food, she will just lick the whole meal until it is completely dry and then walk away leaving the lumps of fish or meat to turn to stone before I put it on the bird table for hungrier creatures. So for that reason we had not given packets of bagels a second thought, they are dry and they don’t smell tempting. That turned out to be a mistake. When Steve came to do the bagel preparation he discovered that there had been an assault on one plastic packet. There were five bagels in each bag and three of them in one bag had bites pulled out of the bagels. The plastic was not even punctured but there were bite sized pieces hanging loose inside. The taste of the plastic must have been enough to stop her gallop. What a contrary little madam. 

Later I had just heard Alexander Armstrong talking about a young Welsh boy Treble, Cai Thomas, who was taking the world by storm. He played the boy singing, Ombra Mai Fu, by Handel from his album and that had the tiny hairs on the back of my neck standing right on end as he held the first note. Steve came in the room and I made a SSSSSHHHSSHHH sign to him and he sat down and listened with me to the lad, in equal awe.

When the boy’s track had finished, Steve asked me how I felt about going down to the beach for a sea swim. He went on the say that we wouldn’t need wet suits because he had checked the water temperature and it was over 16 degrees. I had just finished the first leg of my pants embroidery, so the timing of the suggestion was excellent. We quickly scuttled about changing into swimming togs, gathering goggles and hats and throwing on our old towelling dressing gowns. The beach is only two miles away.

Littlehampton beach was more packed than we had ever seen it. There were more people than there are on a sunny bank holiday weekend. There was not a car parking place left anywhere and I am keeping quiet about where we parked Violetta. Steve had grabbed my old fins so that I would be able to keep up with him. You couldn’t put a pin between the people on the beach at the main tourist favoured section closest to the river. We went further along until it was not quite so crowded and walked onto the beach and down the shingle close to the water.

We had a heavenly swim and with both of us without wetsuits and me with the fins we were able to swim together. It was over an hour before the high tide time but the current was running strongly. We went further out from the beach, so none of the visitors were out that far. I find it alarming how little thought strangers give to the danger of our very strong current. There were families with younger children wearing or with holding buoyancy aids. I though they were too far into the water and actually saw one mother grab her child by the foot as it started to drift quickly out on a receding wave.

For Steve and me, it was so lovely to be able to get a half decent swim in on such a beautiful day when there we not much wind, the waves were not very high, and the sea was such a welcome addition to our day.