The Pit of Despair and how to claw your way out of it.

Yesterday morning started very badly, with a horrible headache, and uncontrollable crying. And that was just me. The black fist of depression had closed around my heart, rendering the world in shades of black and, well, black. Inconsolable, I was offered cuddles, paracetomol and codeine, tea and many other little fripperies to try to break the curse upon my soul. Sadly nothing worked (although the paracetomol & codeine did fix the head), and by lunchtime I was as sick of myself as everyone else was, and vowed to try anything to cheer up.

We decided to head to the beach. We were a little earlier than usual, and low tide hadn't yet arrived. The surf was quiescent to a certain degree, although the plague-yellow flag was still flying as a warning. Immediately my spirits soared, and dumping the drinks bag, the rollmats and all my companions, I strode towards the water. That's the cure for depression. Surf. This time I didn't have to fight my way through the crashing waves, but was lifted gently skywards as they rose before breaking behind me. I was so far out at one point that I got an angry whistle from a life guard, who insisted I swim back to the crowd of eager porpoises. The feeling of swimming front crawl up a just-about-to-break wave and crashing through the top as the white foam forms is amazing. Within minutes the last strands of darkness had left my tortured soul, and I was able to see the sunlight, feel the waves and get water in my ears!

We seem to be getting into a pleasant routine with the beach visits. We spend the morning doing other things (sometimes just lurking in the shade to keep cool), and when 3pm comes round, we scurry round getting ready for our trips to the beach. I think we've already spent more time on the beach this year than we did for the whole of our trip last year. Apart from the second day when we didn't get down to the beach, we've been down there every day.

Having promised Charlotte that we'd eat Steak and Chips at some point in the holiday, I decided that last night was as good a time as any, so we headed down to the restaurant in the camp site - they were offering a special for the evening - steak frites for 10.50. Sadly the steak was a nasty tough cut, and was not beaten to within an inch of it's life as is usual in a French kitchen. It was also fried in so much grease that there was a pool of fat on top of the meat when it arrived at the table. Lottie and I, who'd decided to have this, were rather disappointed, and I wished I'd gone for the moules. In fact, many of the a la carte options looked a whole lot better than our steak. Remember last year when I didn't recommend the pizza in the other restaurant here, well I can't really recommend this restaurant either. The chips were good! I think it's probably time to stop flogging that dead horse, and find a different restaurant close by and go for that instead.

It's my turn to sit in the facilities and charge the laptops, but after that I'm going back to the tent and we'll put on a load of washing - damn! The mundane things we do some days. Just rest assured that this afternoon we'll be on the beach, using that surf to brighten our drab and wretched lives...