As a late birthday treat my friend of many years Sally took me to the beach. We walked from Eccles to Sea Palling and then back again. It was warm, the sun was shining and the sea was turquoise. We chit-chatted and gazed and dropped our heads to beach-comb, looking for sea-glass and witch stones (stones with holes) and small scraps of drift wood. Then we ate chips outside the cafe/chip-shop in Sea Palling, and dark chocolate truffles. It was a perfect day. We even saw a couple of butterflies, raggedy peacocks making the most of the last days of this year's sunshine, and a dragon-fly.