I'll tell you a story................

This morning we woke up to torrential rain in Scarborough so we abandoned all plans of a 10 mile walk and off we went along the North Beach. The apartment we're staying in, is on the cliff top above North Beach, and at 8am we looked down onto the seafront and spotted a man on a seat looking out to sea. We thought it was a bit odd because; who sits on a bench at 8am in pounding rain? He was still there at 9am when I came back from my walk but we just thought; there's some weird people in Scarborough?!!

Anyway I had to spend the morning snoozing while Ann went shopping then at 2pm she said she'd take me for a walk. We walked for miles around Scarborough so it was after 4pm when we got back to our apartment. ...........................And looking down onto the sea front we could see that the man was still there.

Ann started to panic!

Why had he been sitting there all day? Was he dead? If he was dead why had nobody else noticed him? If he was dead, had riga mortis set in so that he didn't look dead, just that he was sitting looking at the sea view (because it had stopped raining by now)? If he wasn't dead why had he been sitting in the same spot all day?

When Ann goes into 'panic mode' things are not good. She said we had to go down the cliff and investigate. On the 5 min walk down the cliff Ann planned her strategy:

1 If he was dead she would phone 999.

2 If she wasn't sure if he was dead she would tie me to the railings on the seafront, check his pulse and then dial 999.

3 If he disappeared by the time we got down the cliff then he must have been a ghost and Ann would have been very freaked out.

4 If he was a tramp she would sit on the seat next to him and try and talk to him. She would buy him a cup of tea from the cafe along the road and give him the change from £20. Well 'tis the season of goodwill.

5 If he was a 'violent tramp' or looked remotely threatening, Ann would walk to the seafront with me first & pretend she was admiring the view, set up her phone so that she just had to press a button to get the police, keep the phone in her pocket with her finger on the button and then when he started attacking her she would yell out crucial information like where she was. The only thing was - she couldn't decide which bit of crucial information to shout first. Marine Drive, Cafe, North Beach? But she figured that police have GPS tracking things so they'd get to her pretty quickly ................unless 'weird tramp' had a knife and was going to stab her.

6 Ann decided if he was a 'weird tramp' I would alert her to danger. Ie; if he didn't like me, Ann had to be wary of him. .................However, at this stage Ann was pretty sure he was dead and all the way down the cliff she kept telling me that I wasn't to go mad at the police and paramedics!!!!!!! Apparently I was going to be tied to the seafront railings while Ann gave the police a statement?!!

Amazing how many thoughts one can have in 5 mins. .................I just looked at it as having an extra walk.

Anyway the nearer we got to him the bigger he seemed .................... until we got right up to him and saw that he was a steel sculpture.

Thank goodness for that. Ann really isn't good in a crisis!!!!

And for anyone who's interested; this is Freddie. Look here for more information.

PS - Getting her eyes tested is on Ann's 'to do' list for the New Year!!!!!