Down to the windsurfing club yesterday and decided that the wind and waves were beyond the capabilities of a man of my vintage. Fortunately, I had my camera so could capture a couple of shots.

We had seen it from afar when shooting “the winkle pickers”, a long jetty with a strange structure at the end of it:

So there I was, sat on the ground in front of a structure, taking some photos (more of this later). Suddenly, there appeared a monk, walking in my general direction.

I am now spending three afternoons a week on the beach, either windsurfing or paddleboarding; in a more focused effort to keep the Spike body operating beyond its sell-by date. Yesterday, the wind was still building when I arrived, so I took my camera and walked along the shore line.

There was the usual collection of junk, dead fish, and sea shells and I soon found myself playing around to create what I decided to call “The last straw”.

Shared the exciting news with my wife this morning that the Philae lander had woken up and was transmitting again. Naturally she had no idea what I was talking about, and my explanation was met with less enthusiasm than I would have hoped for and exactly the amount of disinterest that I was expecting.

Still, this led to a discussion on how the curiosity of mankind had led to amazing feats of space exploration.

She who must be obeyed has becoming increasingly certain that her lady bits have a problem; so much of a problem that, after extensive research on the wide wide world of web, the ‘C’ word had been mentioned as a possibility.

This was of course bad news. One of the benefits of signing up for a young wife is that you can be pretty sure that you will be the first to pop your clogs; thus relieving yourself of the inconvenience of having to change your own adult diapers as your descend into drooling incontinence and madness. Plus, of course, I would miss her. However, she does have a reputation for worrying herself into symptoms which later transpire to be nothing; so I was banking on this to be another such event.

I know what you are thinking. Spike, WTF? Or indeed, what the fuck? Why one earth would you purchase one of these “dull, black, bland, boring pieces of flappy mirror equipped, crappy sensor lumps of shit”*?

Be still your beating heart dear reader and re-holster that vitriol; because although it is a Canon, it is a 1960s Canon; and I haven’t bought it, I have it on loan from my friend Tic so I can run a film through it and evaluate it for him.

And here it is: