… heroes. They are out there canoeing and surfboard swimming and although one or two of them are wearing wetsuits, the others are not.

And that wasn’t all either because about ab hour later, two old people turned up and went for a swim in the water.

I was so impressed with all of this because you would not have enticed me into the water for all the tea in China.

You’ve probably noticed that the weather has changed. Thick grey miserable clouds. The sun has gone. But it was even worse this morning. When I awoke (at 05:50 this morning) there was a torrential downpour going on and that was the kind of thing that made me reluctant to leave my bed. In fact, it was 09:30 when I finally crawled out of my stinking pit.

I had good reason to too. I was in bed early, as you know, and it didn’t take me too long to drop off. But I was soon awake again and had endless trouble dropping off again. It was long after midnight (Atlantic Time) and I was still awake.

Once I finally did manage to drop off it wasn’t a peaceful night either. I was up at least once for a trip down the corridor and when I did eventually wake up, I was all bunged up and it was really uncomfortable. I just can’t seem to shake off this streaming cold.

During the morning I went and liberated the guitar from Strider and had a little play around. The idea was that it would give me something to do this afternoon given the state of the weather. It also goes without saying that given the night that I had had, I was away with the fairies too for a good part of the morning. THis is a lovely and comfortable sofa.

After lunch, the weather eased slightly and so I decided that despite everything I would hit the beach. At first I was the only person out there, which was hardly surprising given the clouds, and when it started to rain a little there were even fewer people. I headed to a shelter where I could see the beach and the sea, and watch the surfers and swimmers when they turned up.

When I finished my book I headed back to Strider to find that it was only 16:40. But never mind – I headed back here anyway and prepared my pizza for tea.

And here’s something that I haven’t done for several years, and that was to watch the gridiron. The Colts versus the Broncos. It’s been along time since I’ve done that.

But the adverts on US television are hilarious. Never mind the disclaimers in the adverts, that are often quite longer than the meat of the adverts, there are two makes of motor vehicle that you will never find in Europe, namely a Knee-sonne and a Hunday.

And not only that, going on from something that we discussed the other day, I learnt that Bell offer you the best satellite TV coverage at the cottage. Any British person who had gone to the cottage wouldn’t have gone there to watch television, although back in the old days going to the cottage might have meant that you were hoping to find a 17-inch Murphy.

And so I’ll be having another early night. But my nose is streaming already so I imagine that this is going to be a very long night.