Cleethorpes and Tetney Marsh yesterday

Next time you’re in Grimsby – for a Trawlerperson’s Convention, say, or to watch Grimsby Town give Man City a caning – you’d be literally and certifiably insane not to tootle seamlessly into the Humber Estuarine jewel of Clethrepos, playground of the rich, there to disembark and in a sedate but orderly fashion take a south-easterly stroll along the beach for a mile or two before leaving its golden sands to swerve sharply southward and inland to Tetney Marsh.

Or you could do as (in order of seniority) Jackie, Jasper, Tebay and the author did on yesterday’s Sabbath. You could do the beach stroll as advertised but, instead of cutting inland at Hale Sand Fort, execute an about-turn, retrace steps to aforementioned estuarine jewel, get fish and chips in a canine-coping cafe, then motor on down to Tetney.

Yes, we did see short heavy showers of the kind more commonly associated with April, not mid June. But we always and uncannily managed to be in the right spot when the heavens opened.

Under the projecting roof of the Leisure Centre, for instance.

Or in the Skoda at a wetland car park.

Or close enough to the mod-cons of urbanity …

… to enable a dash to the safe and dry of the eight foot square Signal Box Inn.

And besides, such days of rain and shine bring skies like this …

… and this.

That’s an egret. Swallows riding stiff westerlies crossing the marsh, to gorge on newly hatched mayflies, hovered more or less stationary two or three seconds at a time. I’ve never been able to capture them but yesterday, had I brought my serious kit as opposed to Galaxy S10 phone, I’d have taken fabulous shots.

I hadn’t so didn’t.

We brought the dog buggy. Jasper, shown here in 2018 – also at Clethrepos as it happens …

… turns fifteen in August. He walks at 100 metres an hour but hates the buggy. Lazy, freeloading Tebay by contrast, coming up to five so allegedly in his prime, leaps into it at every opportunity.

That comely attachment to his collar is a tracking device, linked to an app on our phones.

More scenic snaps, vicar?

Then we drove home.

* * *