Whitley Walk

As Ferretfingers’ day centre day had been moved from Wednesday to Monday I decided we should go for a walk, and asked my Facebook friends what the coast was like on weekday mornings. 

It has been heaving at weekends during this present unpleasantness, even in midwinter, as people taking their daily exercise started to appreciate their local area.

 

Mrs Quilt lives on the coast and suggested we meet up for a talking walk.  I eagerly accepted as Ferretfingers isn’t big on conversation and Mrs Quilt and I hadn’t seen each other for a proper face to face chat in many months.

 

The last day of June dawned cold and misty; and if I hadn’t agreed to meet Mrs Quilt I might have risked disappointing Ferretfingers.  However we met in the Briardene carpark at 9.30 am and, as it was high tide, walked down and along the promenade.  The dreich weather had the advantage that there were even fewer people out and about than normal for a midweek morning.

 

I had intended to only go as far as the Rendezvous Café (which has featured in Vera).

Mrs Quilt thought we’d go as far as Watts Slope.

But every time I asked "Onward or back?" Ferretfingers pointed forwards.

At Watts Slope we descended onto the beach and kept walking South, past the Spanish City (of Dire Straits Tunnel of Love, fame).

 

We lost Mrs Quilt to another appointment where Whitley Bay starts turning into Cullercoats.

Ferretfingers finally decided to stop at Beaches & Cream cafe (very chichi) as he'd been promised a hot chocolate and I needed a wee.  He had a sausage butty and I had liquorice & toffee ice-cream (and a wee).

 

We took the more circuitous and picturesque route back so, all in all, walked some four and a half miles.  This route took us down onto all the promenades and eventually, as the tide was on its way out, the beach.  Walking along the lower prom underneath Rockcliffe Gardens I noticed what I first thought were bats flitting around us only a few feet from the ground.  After a few moments I realised they were swallows and house martins; who I mostly associate with flying high in blue summer haymaking skies or chittering on telegraph wires announcing the approach of autumn.

 

When we reached the top of the slope down to Whitley Beach I understood what was attracting them.  There have been some stormy tides and there was a lot of kelp thrown up on the beach, so there were sand-flies, so there were insectivorous birds - like swallows and house martins.

There were so many flitting and wheeling around us on the ramps near the beaches it was like being in a Disney cartoon.  I was filled with delight and felt like Snow White walking through the woods; I half expected one to land on my finger and twitter a little tune.

 

It's not often you're privileged to be so close to and looking down on swallows and house martins.