Across the pond

So the newspapers and the weather forecasters were not entirley wrong about the bank holiday. Snow fell in Colchester yesterday, according to my youngest daughter. We ventured out at lunchtime despite a stiff wind on the hills and a threatening dark black sky and even met a brief hailstorm on the road to Lyme Regis. But down the hill in the bay it was sheltered and sea was stroking the beach, not dashing over the Cobb. The only blight on the Easter Bonnet Parade, now in its fortieth year, was the few drops of rain which fell just as the Red Hatted Laides were lining up to receive their prize.

Your intrepid reporter could not find a single goose pimple on the near 200 bare legs of the Drum Majorettes. They came from all age groups, if you include the minders keeping them in line. The youngest, a girl aged about 5, who brought up the rear, was an authentic lookalike of the baby of the von Trapp family in the Sound of Music. She had the personality to go with it. So I stopped my ears, shutting out the awful music coming from the sound system on the loudspeaker van, and listened in my head to Eidelweiss, hearing instead the voices of Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer and those up and coming stars playing the rest of the family.

And the sun came out. So the grandchildren spent a couple of hours playing on the beach. But as honest reporter I have to say it was not quite warm enough to tempt any swimmers into the sea.

But Arctic it wasn’t.

Today was even better. On the top of Golden Cap there was only a slight breeze. The sun was hot as summer in South West England. And the visibility was so good that I could almost count the grains of sand on Chesil Beech.

And the path up the hill was quite crowded. We were not alone in ignoring the forecasts of the chilliest Easter of the century.

HELP. As you can see I am having trouble getting my pictures from Photoshop into the blog, both with sizing and the wrap around and even with moving them once I get them there. If any user of the WordPress program who says this could give me some crisp advice I would be grateful. My email is bob@thedailynovel.com.

The pic by the way is the view from Golden Cap looking towards Chesil Beach in the distance. Taken today by my eldest daughter, Holly. There as another to come of those majorettes if I can only manage to move it in without distorting the picture.