Tommy (Atkins)

Ray Lonsdale's enormous metal sculpture of World War One's soldier, Tommy, stands on Terrace Green at Seaham on the North East coast. Officially he is called Eleven O One which was the first minute of the armistice at the end of the war.

Everyone locally calls him Tommy.

He was intended to be a temporary monument, but locals raised the money to buy him and they plan to keep him there forever.

I have never been to Seaham since he arrived, but I had heard how hard he is to photograph. It is true. In the bright sunshine and blue sky, his face was almost impossible to capture. I decided to try sepia and I think it works fairly well.

There are now more sculptures in town - miners and a coxswain of the lifeboat included amongst them.

I called for Freda at 11 and we had our lunch in a Seaham café. My chicken and bacon salad was very good. I didn't notice that the brie was missing until I had almost finished, so I didn't say anything.

We drove to Hawthorn Dene where I know various wild flowers bloom, but it was bone dry and the time was getting on, so we went to Freda's house in Silksworth for a cuppa.

She has loaned me a large family portrait that is of our grandmother's family when Grandma was about 18 years old. It has deteriorated a lot but I will see if I can make a copy and restore it.

On my way home, I called at Kemps wool shop, the shop Mum and I used for years. They have stopped selling online and I wanted to try using 3 ply for a premature baby hat.

Of course, I was tempted to buy some more yarn. Oh dear!

There was a lot of traffic on the A1 so my journey home was slow, but I'm back now and very happy with my day.