The beach, today. Clacton on the train on the free tickets they give you to make the price of an annual season feel more reasonable. I half expected them not to be valid since the take-over, but the guard flapped his hand at us as we showed him them, and then drifted off down the carriage, so I guess that answers that one.

It’s years since I’ve been that way on a train. Everything looks very different to the way it is when you go by road. There were pheasants everywhere. Two or three dozen at least between Colchester and the coast brave enough to step out from the undergrowth.

Rolled-up trousers aside, nobody seemed to be brave enough to strip off on the beach, and the wind on the pier was particularly grim. There were sheltered notches in the sea wall, though, and every tea hut seemed to be open, which seemed a good enough excuse to sit around in the weak sunshine drinking.

It’s been a pretty good weekend, actually. Friday night was the traditional Easter curry with Mark, Alison, Niall and co. We ended up in a poshish place upstairs in South Woodham (where all the restaurants seem to be upstairs). The light fittings looked like Sauron’s mask and the post-eat behaviour degenerated into a mild food fight. The floor was covered in sugar by the time we left, and we were covered in powder from the lemon sweets.

I don’t know what time that was, but we went back to Mark’s when we were done, and listened to his CDs of next month’s Eurovision again, and I got home some time around four on Saturday.

On a second listen, the crap really starts to show itself. There are some obvious knock-outs in the qualifying round, I think. Malta is a more obvious loser than ever.

Yesterday… erm… not a lot. Sleeping in, and then Helen’s birthday dinner, so all in all pretty relaxing.

I’ve even managed to restrict the Easter chocolate eating to a single Creme Egg, so that can’t be bad.

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