A Visit to the Seaside

Last Friday was our wedding anniversary and we woke up to sunny weather so decided, on impulse, to drive to the seaside for the day.

Now, the one thing wrong with Sheffield is that it is bang, smack in the centre of the country so about as far as you can get from the sea! Undaunted, we set off for the East Coast..

Unfortunately, it wasn't long before clouds began brooding overhead, as you can see from these sketches I did through the windscreen. Less fortunately still, we hit such appalling traffic passing York, that we had to give up on our chosen destination of Robin Hood's Bay (the place we started our honeymoon, 18 years ago) and detour to Bridlington. 

As least it didn't rain. 

We put a couple of hours in the meter and I had a bit of a paddle, then we sat on the sand and I painted this watercolour sketch and the one at the top. Then we decided to brave the roads once more...

We eventually made it to Robin Hood's Bay, but it was already nearly 4.30pm. The tide was right out, so we had a rockpool-stroll along the beach, then a well deserved drink, watching arrivals coming in at the end of the Coast-to-Coast walk. Then we decided we had spent quite long enough in the car for one day, and booked a B&B.

It proved to be a good plan as we enjoyed a nice meal sitting outside The Dolphin:

...and then an excellent evening of folk music in the bar upstairs. It was one of those 'open mike' events that can go either way, but we couldn't believe just how amazing the standard was. There were 3 visitors in town, all of whom had the whole pub gobsmacked. I couldn't resist some more sketching:

One was a lad of just 13, who even wrote some of his own songs:

Next day the rain finally came. And how! We managed a quick visit to the harbour and a pot of tea outside a cafe (with just time for this final painting) before the skies opened and we had to start home. 

A lovely treat though.