We've been away for a few days with Virginia's sister Justine in Frinton, and a very restful time it was. Perhaps 'attractions' have tended to go to nearby Walton-on-the-Naze, or Clacton which isn't that far, and so left Frinton becalmed. Perhaps Frinton has a psychic balance of peace which repels those who ooze stress. It is very tranquil wandering along the sea front, admiring the beach huts (available for rent or purchase). Quite a few people are employed keeping the numerous beach huts in trim. We walked to Walton one day which is only a stone's throw away. The pier there was closed, as was the RNLI shop Virginia and I got cards in on Tufty Club outings. The Round Table fish and chip place that we normally frequent on Tufty Club outings was also shut, but we had sandwiches at a place along the seafront in Walton sadly exposed to cigarette smoke. Virginia did detect some delicious doughnuts for us to have on the way back. Mealwise much nicer was a visit to Parker's Garden Centre in Frinton, we ate inside a tent all having a welcome hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows. We strayed to Clacton one day, the pier there has quite a few attractions but the place felt down market.

So we used up another of the days of holiday I had to use before the end of the year. Let's go to Mountfitchet Castle, that'll be a nice outing I thought. It was when we got there, and discovered the car park full, that we realised half term week was not a great time to go there. The place was heaving with children, both under parental control and under teacher control (there was a large school party there). I remembered the toy museum on the hill - I'm a sucker for places like that. I didn't remember it had so much war memorabilia in it. And I certainly didn't remember the dinosaurs guarding the entrance with water cannon. You had to time your dash for the door to the toy museum carefully or you got soaked with water. Glad dinosaurs are now extinct. We wandered around the reconstruction of a Norman wooden castle site. There is a lot of information there, it does give an impression of those times. Not good times for the villeins and serfs and poachers. The lords really lorded it over everyone else. The cafe was heaving so we had lunch somewhere else, ending up at our nearest Beefeater the "Travellers Rest".

I used up one of the days of holiday I had to use before the end of the year and we went to Audley End. It was late in the season for the gardens, but there was still colour in the parterre, nature forced into unnatural lines and arcs. A fountain fitfully and thinly spouted.

Virginia's grandmother used to run a Tufty Club (a long gone organisation for teaching children to cross the road safely, Tufty was a squirrel.) This Tufty Club had an annual outing to the seaside which kept happening even after the Club itself became moribund. Virginia's mother has kept the outing going, and I felt I should go once to experience the experience. The outing goes to "Walton on the Naze" (typical English seaside town.) Decent gently sloping beach (no treacherous undercurrents but the tide comes in surprisingly quickly.) A pier that's seen better days with an amusement arcade of dodgems and old style roller coasters. Stalls where you can buy cheap kites and postcards and inflatables and buckets and spades. We walked to the Naze Tower and tried our hand at flying kites, but the wind was spasmodic. It had been gusty enough to blow Virginia's straw hat into the sea which didn't do it any good! We had a pleasant enough lunch in a pub which wasn't as crowded as I feared. Took two hours each way travelling which wasn't so nice, it was a crawl reaching Walton itself. Also on the downside was getting the windscreen cracked on the motorway (as the crack is spreading better get that seen to!)