25.08.2026
In the morning, I woke up raring to go. It was a beautiful day outside and we were off somewhere, my friend Mark and me. It was going to be a surprise. I managed to fit in meditation, chi building, light weights, push ups and stomach crunches. As well as a crossword, a jigsaw puzzle and scrabble online as well as a light breakfast.
After breakfast, most of the morning was taken up with last minute packing (in which I forgot some hand sanitiser) and also playing around with my new pocket microscope that I had gotten from Hamleys. I just couldn’t figure out where the battery was and how to switch on the light. I looked at it from every angle, I searched the internet for a solution. I had a suspicion that you could pull the microscope out of its cradle and that’s how you used it but I didn’t want to break it by pulling it too hard. It later turned out I was right when Mark looked over it too and we got the LED light working. But that didn’t stop me wasting all the time in the morning looking at the thing.
Mark turned up and told me that we were going to Burnham on Crouch and the coast again. During the car journey there, we stopped at a graveyard along the road which had a good view of the Essex plain, which was a picture of complete flatness.
We parked the car at Burnham next to a stately Napoleonic manor from 1815. And then we wended our way down to the coastal path next to the town. We watched a boat being lifted and then lowered into the sea which was called Ophelia which led to us ranking the best of the plays of Shakespeare and commenting on Ophelia being in the water. We also walked into an area that had been devastated by wildfire. It was massive although had been controlled in the end. Next, Mark and I were looking at leaves and feathers through the pocket microscope, amazing views, learning how to use the thing. There were a few excursions into charity shops where we gawped at books and I had to force myself not to pick up one, a paper back on how the earth had shaped human civilisations over time. We ended up having, respectively, a cappucino and a strawberry and chocolate gelato ice cream in the pub. It was tastefully decorated, with a vivid blue paint on the walls and classy portrait paintings of animals in clothes. The table that we sat on had a mass of fake cherry blossoms towering over us as well as a large gilt mirror behind us.
I started talking to the waitress in the pub, a young blonde lady. I asked her if there was anything to do in Burnham that we didn’t know about. There was something she suggested, but it turned out that that was next week. She actually wasn’t from Burnham, but from somewhere nearby. So she couldn’t really tell us. She did suggest seal watching though. I got the young lady to take a photo of Mark and I when we were leaving.
We ended up on a pontoon that shook and quivered with the sea as we walked along it. Kids were catching crabs with nets down there. One family had them in a see through bucket and they were all restless with movement. I asked the lady what they were going to do with them and she laughed and said that they would just throw them back.
We then went on the massive walk where the dry grass was brushing against my bare legs and in which I would eventually end up with a small blister on one of my toes, which was much better than the last blister that I had got on the sole of my foot last time which was exceptionally painful and had come once the interior of my trainers had deteriorated. We spotted Oystercatchers and I had a lunch of sausage rolls and Hula Hoops washed down with water while Mark feasted on corned beef and brown sauce sandwiches. There was an interesting pill box on the way as well as a solar farm and renewable energy windmills. We ended up at the North sea where we sat on a private beach, all to ourselves, again looking at a feather through the microscope and looking out over the sea with my binoculars. Mark thought he spotted some seals as this was seal country, but they might just have been some stones.
In about three hours, we had only seen one human being on that walk. It was a brown haired woman who was very friendly. She had a dog with her and the reason we started talking to her was because Mark threw her the ball that she had been throwing to her dog so that her dog would get back to her.
We walked back to the car to dump our stuff after the walk and had a quick orange juice and a tea in the pub, which had a picture of Dolly Parton which we discussed, before we walked over to the sea again and the pontoon from before. There, a German woman that was breastfeeding her kids started talking to us. She recommended that we go to the Ship Inn for dinner so that was what we did. I had fish and chips and Mark had the prawn spaghetti. I followed my meal with a white chocolate and raspberry cake with amoretto biscuit while Mark had a creme brulee with some biscuits. During dinner, we found out that Dolly Parton had died and we were struck by the coincidence that we’d just been talking about her.
Then it was the end of the journey, the car drive back home. We listened to Dolly Parton songs and about her life, as well as about an upcoming documentary about Wham! and how they had been the first Western act to perform in China (or something of that description). We talked about George Michael amongst other things, Mark not recognising the song ‘Fast Love’ which is my favourite one by him, even when I sang it.
Home and a call to my girlfriend. And then my diary. And now? Sleep. It is 23.15. I’ve been up since six in the morning and will be up at 6 am tomorrow.
diary of a lone man 