Today was the better of the two days this weekend, so we headed back across the Suffolk/Essex border to Mistley. I’d not been in ages - years, in all likelihood - but I did remember one things very clearly: the swans.

The town pays them homage with a rather disappointing swan fountain, unwisely built in such a manner that the swan’s neck is angling its head straight down, and it looks more like it’s spitting out a constant stream of swilled Listerine.

Nevertheless, the swans themselves are something that people come a fair way to see.

And you can understand why when you get there.

These huge flocks rule the southern banks of the Stour here, and they bring the traffic to a stop as they wander aimlessly across the road. One particularly brazen animal had stridden out into the path of a Vectra, forcing it to a screeching halt, as the local swan-feeding busybody arrived and gave it a stern talking-to.

Quite literally.

Coming from the other direction and winding down her window, she pulled to a halt beside it, looked it sternly in the eye and said, ‘go back. Go on. Turn around and go back.’

There was a momentary stand-off but she won - unbelievably - and the swan reluctantly turned around and stomped slowly back over to join the other 100 birds on the bank.

But there’s only so long you can go squatting around in swan poo taking photos, and so after a walk along the riverbank to the next town - Manningtree - and then back again through the wind, we drove out to Harwich to walk by the high and low lighthouses, along the breezy esplanade as far as the fenced-off promenade, and the back by way of the maritime museum, vintage television museum and treadmill crane.

I wish the weather had been better, and that we’d been there on a Saturday rather than a Sunday, as there’s lots to see and do in Harwich on a summer’s weekend.

As it was, we amused ourselves taking pictures of the Electric Palace, the oldest working cinema in Britain. It was strange seeing bill-printed posters for Borat and Casino Royale outside something whose screen was probably no bigger than a widescreen MacBook Pro.

1. Tiresome day
   So after two nights of taking half doses of the brown manure-stinking gloop, it seems to be working. Perhaps I'm tempting fate there, but it's...
   
   
2. Sonning
   James-Paul suggested getting out of London, to the west, to walk the Thames from Reading to Sonning. In the end we pushed on as...
   
   
3. British Museum
   If you're ever looking for me at lunchtime then, at least one day every week - sometimes two - you'll find me in the...