Psst - Ignore the date on the photo, the camera decided to go a bit nutty and put the wrong date on.
We'll were now on Wednesday and I'm trying to unsuccessfully ring the local TV station - they said the sun would come out at 10am but it actually came out at 9am ... Bastards !!!
Today the tail end of hurricane something or other has blown over (it dumped the last of the rain in the night), and we have several days of sunshine predicted.
We enjoyed breakfast recalling the loony in a Citroen C2 who was so impatient with the car in front of him on the A3121 (as we came back from DZP) that he tried to overtake (with a large car coming towards him) but decided this was far too normal way to die so decided to overtake on a blind right hand bend.
Now most people in that frame of mind forget the laws of vectors and addition of speed, if they are doing 60mph on a blind bend (let's call them car A - A for "Arse") and they meet another car doing 60mph (Let's call them car B - B for "Bloody hell there's a C2 coming head on for us") the general laws of physics dictate that should Car A and Car B meet then the occupants of anything French (and therefore shit) will be dead.
I rest my case with the immortal Citroen AX which I believe was declared the most dangerous car to have an accident in, apparently it can sever your legs or lower body parts along with other nasty things - Ironically it was always the AX that was the preferred chariot of choice for the boy racers.
Unfortunately he escaped without incident but it's only a matter of time before his 1.4 French made food mixer decides it's had enough and parks itself on the front of the local bus.
Obviously with this in mind DZP get an unexpected "meat" bonus - I can imagine the kids now "What's he eating Dad ?", Looks like a Citroen C2 Steering wheel son".
Anyway, I digress, breakfast goes without a hitch and through the rain soaked curtains we see what appears to be a strange colour - without the Internet working properly on the site (apparently it wants to install a program but my linux laptop told it to feck off) we resort to comparing the colour of the sky with a set of cheap Tesco felt pens.
"Hmmmm, nope it's not Black"
"No, it's not Red, yellow, green ..."
We settle, with disbelief on the colour "blue" - or for the sake of the C2 driver, the colour of your car before you splatter it with your own blood.
It seems Summer has indeed arrived at Challaborough.
We venture down to Challaborough beach first, now how can I describe it in words not likely to cause WW III or outcrys from the local drivers ?
I think it fair to say the orientation of Challaborough beach negatively attracts the emissions from the Atlantic swell during, before and after any storms or weather systems and allows deposition over the surface area of the beach within the upper tidal catchment area.
In laymans terms it's covered in seaweed and rubbish from the sea along the high tide mark.
Fortunately the rubbish was actually quite bearable as it had been out numbered by thousands of flies.
Despite the nice pictures and despite the fact that when the tide goes out it's not too bad the top of the beach needed a bit of TLC by someone, it wouldn't hurt to take a tractor out and scoop this shit up - sitting on a beach smelling the rotting seaweed and looking at somone's cast off rubbish is not my idea of a holiday - Nil Poits from the French Judge on this one and I lay the blame for this firmly on the local council, other beaches can send a tractor down early to clear up the high tide line and even smooth out the sand but not here it appears.
After our inspection of the local dump we decide to walk over the cliff path to Burgh Island, the walk is not too bad (about 30 degree incline for about 200 feet), the view gets better as you go up and the sight and smell of the seaweed gets less.
Coming over the top your greeted with the remarkable sight of Burgh Island, in all we spent 3 days doing nothing but sitting on this beach and enjoying the fantastic clean environment.
Fortunately all the rubbish seems to wash up at Challaborough leaving Burgh Island a fantastic place to hang out.
The sand is fine and clean, the beach almost flat so you can wade out a hundred metres and still be touching the bottom, the water is so clean you can see your feet.
Now I have to say though that the "SHDC" - South Hams District Council should get their act together, they charge £6 a day for parking and trust me the car park does a healthy bit of trade, if you put signs up saying "No Dogs Allowed" then I expect no fecking dogs.
To walk out the sea (with your child near you) and see a nice pile of dog shit is not nice, the signs offer a nice fine of £500 if you don't clear it up and the stuck up idiots who think they are too good to lower themselves to do this should be made an example of.
Now I've had dogs for 42 years in my life so before anyone clicks the "comment" button and before I click the "delete" button I've done more than my fair share of scooping dog shit and keeping them off beaches.
To visit such a superb beach and see (thankfully not many) piles of dog crap leaves a damper on the day, we even went to the "No Dogs" beach which is clearly marked and clearly signposted to find it had more dogs on it than the one they are really allowed on.
Come on SHDC, get someone down there handing out £500 fines and make their day, I certainly don't enjoy making sandcastles that are more sticky and prone to attracting flies than the next ones and once word gets around then the one or two mindless idiots who ruin it for the masses of responsible owners will sort themselves out.
Most of the owners cleaned up straight away and it was great - no problems at all so despite the slight issue and the long rant the beach still gets the thumbs up, and yes it's nice to have a friendly dog wander up and play for a bit or swim past you, some people just need to be a bit more considerate and appreciate this is an area designated natural beauty, nothing spoils it more than a photo with a dog turd on it !
Final Score - Challaborough 2, Burgh Island 9.
Should SHDC send a tractor to Challaborough to keep it tip top when needed and appoint a warden to Burgh Island then the scores would be 8 and 10 - Challaborough has all the makings of a great beach but not when it's covered in rubbish.
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