Not a Bucket in Sight!

Earlier this week Tony suggested that we might go to the orienteering event at Errington Woods in Cleveland.  The reason behind this suggestion was that later this year we will celebrate our 40th Wedding Anniversary and we have sort of been compiling a list of 40 things we would like to do through the year: some first time things; some simple things we like to do, some revisiting memories and special places, and a couple more ambitious.  So why Errington Woods?  Well it was only ten minutes away from the coast and, particularly, the seaside town of Saltburn.

Back in the winter of 1977, on a day much like today, we had our first date, here at Saltburn.  Still nervous around each other, Tony suggested a trip out to the coast from our teacher training college near Darlington.  I was working out if trains ran to Saltburn but he said he had a car, wow a boyfriend with a car!  So we packed the waterpoofs, climbed in the sky blue Opel Kadett and headed east.  We walked along the empty beach in to a freezing headwind.  I spotted a plastic bucket on the sand and did one of those daft 'show off' things you do when you are 21, and kicked it, to discover it was buried in the sand!  That was one sore set of toes! 

So today we walked on Saltburn beach in our waterproofs into a headwind, and relived our first real day.....

I was an English student and later I wrote a poem about that day:

Saltburn - Winter '77
A blank, neutral sky hung suspended above the empty sands
Where only out-of-season dogs and people took their exercise.
We joined them battling against the icy blasts,
Weatherproofed, gloved, hatted and laughing at the wind.
You threw me in the sea, or at least you tried,
All because I beat you at hopscotch.

Joined in happiness as well as hands we faced into the rain.
Kicking buckets, tripping each other, chasing the waves and
     escaping their frozen fingers.
All awkwardness gone, we stood close in the dark of the shelter.

Walking, dripping through the lifeless town we hunted down
    down postcards in the dusty depths of a newsagents
With all the panache of sunny holidaymakers in tropical June.

Not everyone's day to start out on, but maybe the right one for us.