On Wednesday evening I took Miles down to the Works skatepark as part of his birthday treat which should have happened a week earlier but he was ill. Well he just ripped around the park for three and three quarter hours and when I saw him towards the end of the session he was walking awkwardly because his legs were stiff because he was going up and down the much bigger ramps which are in the Works. Whilst he was skateboarding I had a nice 4 mile walk around Leeds City Centre. On the edge of the university area there were hordes of young people and Leeds City Council had put up an ice rink for everybody to enjoy themselves. It was a great evening!

Yesterday with the family we went to Whitby to walk under the cliff area between Whitby Pier and Saltwick Bay. It is a good area to see fossils as well as a good chunk of the sequence of rocks that represent the Jurassic period. Seeing fossils in situ was really good and the Jurassic series up the cliff was totally amazing. I realise yet again to get the full benefit of this type of walk you really need a guide to decode a lot of what you see. Put it this way, it was much easier to identify the birdlife! There were a lot of Oyster Catchers and Sandpipers. It was very slippy as we walked because although the tide had gone out it was low tide at 2:11 p.m. and we got there just before that time but I was keeping an eye on the tide because it had just turned and I did not know how quickly it came back in. It turned out we have little to worry about but it is always best to check because I did not fancy being roped back over those cliffs if we got stuck! Well actually it could be a bit of an adventure! We saw a huge amount of periwinkle trails which we were not quite sure what they were at first because we had never seen them. When we got to Saltwick Nab the boys went back on the cliff path and we arranged to meet them at the foot of Whitby steps. The next time we go there we are going to walk a few miles down the coast under the cliff and then cut back up one of the cliff paths and do a circular walk back on the top cliff path. There is a great feeling of space when you walk out on those long plain like rocky outcrops. We had the usual fish and chips at Hadleys the fish restaurant and of course an episode of Star Trek when we got back. A wonderful day out only marred somewhat by Fiona going down with a cold at about nine o'clock at night. Miles is also getting another cold. Sorry little doggies!