High Tide 00:34 (2.50m)
Low Tide 06:32 (0.60m)
High Tide 12:47 (2.60m)
Low Tide 19:08 (0.40m)
Sea temperature: 16.5
Sea conditions: hugely powerful undertoad, waves beneath the surface occasionally breaking through - seaweed
Weather: grey and windy, but warm
Joined by: The Usual Suspects, which now includes The Vicar's Wife who joins for the summer months.
Topics of conversation:
The strength of the tow, it was deceptively strong first thing and I've just been for a second dip with The Osteopath, who called in on the off chance of having swimming company, and the water was at it's deepest and most powerful. Not a time to swim alone so we stayed near each other and when I got out her partner, The Birder, stayed guard. Whilst he was there he spotted a male eider duck flying over the water, I wasn't sure I'd recognise one in flight so I've looked it up on ARKive and there's some great footage here, where they aren't flying but do the most perfect ice flow walk and make that sound that sounds as if they are fascinated by what each other has to say: Eider ducks 

I stayed in for too long this morning, it was not distance swimming conditions so there was not much by way of exercise and the blood didn't get pumping. This meant that by the time I got home my hands were numb and the shower water hurt. It's easily done and it would've been a perfect sauna day, but I hadn't been in the mood to light it. Next week I'm going to force myself to do so as it's worth the effort and would keep my injured back more mobile.
Jess was looking majestic as always.

The Ellies, Legs and I had been to the Southwold Picture Palace last night, where we'd bumped into the Vicar's Wife and The Vicar. None of us had enjoyed the film, which was a shame as I'd been really looking forward to it. We saw Inside Llewyn Davis, the first Coen Brothers film I've taken against. I wasn't the only one, although we all agreed that seeing it at the Picture Palace wasn't the best place - it couldn't take an interval, certainly not an interval with chat, wine and a short film. Although we all agreed that the best bit was the Tom and Jerry cartoon before hand, which had been chosen because there's a cat in the main feature. IMDB's storyline section describes the film thus:
Follow a week in the life of a young folk singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961. Guitar in tow, huddled against the unforgiving New York winter, he is struggling to make it as a musician against seemingly insurmountable obstacles -- some of them of his own making.
Well actually they are all of his own making, he is a completely unsympathetic character, if they were trying to create someone who's just a bit shit at everything; relationships, looks, empathy with animals and ultimately music, they succeeded. Carey Mulligan's character Jean neatly sums him up with the unforgettable line: Everything you touch turns to shit, you're like king Midas's idiot brother.
The evening was saved by the Two Magpies Bakery, a bakery that turns pizza place in the evening. I don't like pizza but the Brooklyn Gazette Eggstra, with cavolo nero, thick squishy wild mushrooms, lashings of shavings of garlic and sweet peppers was delicious, I hesitate to say excellent as there were so many 'egg' jokes being banded about and the chef clearly got carried away too.

I wanted to buy us each one of their vast pillowy meringues to take into the cinema and make people drool, but we decided it wasn't fair. 
The Vicar and his wife had cycled home and had seen the first glow worm of the year, a real sign that summer is here. The Poet was asking about them and there is a survey currently running in Scotland to see how they are doing up there, they give this great concise description:

There are two species of glow worms in the UK. The ‘common’ Glow worm (Lamphyris noctiluca) and the rare Lesser glow worm (Phosphaenus hemipterus), that is only know from a few sites in Hampshire and Sussex.

Glow worms are actually beetles rather than worms. 

From June to August, the wingless females climb-up grass stems at dusk and begin to glow with a pale-green light (bioluminescence) to attract the flying males. The males look much more like a ‘real’ beetle than the females- which don’t have wing cases. The males, larvae and even the eggs can ‘twinkle’ occasionally.

The glow worm spends most of its life as a juvenile. The larvae have pale spots along the sides of their segmented body, and can spend up to 3 years feeding on snails, before turning into an adult. The adults don’t eat and live for only a few weeks, searching for a mate and die shortly after laying their eggs.

The adults and larvae are generally nocturnal, but may be discovered resting under stones or logs during the day. Females tend to start glowing around 10pm until midnight (possibly slightly later in the far north of Scotland where the days are longer and nights shorter in mid-summer).

We talked about the strange drag and I was able to drag-brag that I had experienced navigating through the current as I'd been given the chance to steer Greylag, the beautiful boat jointly owned and cared for by The Architect and the GGB's. The Architect kindly had confidence enough in me to allow me to take control of her on the river and I was amazed at the sensitivity of that stick thing that you use to steer (I'm not good with the nautical terms). She has a fair bit of power too and can turn in a small area so once they know the route a trip up river to the pub is planned. 

Sticky thing with boat runey-type thing drawn into it

The Poet was true to form with his level of jokes this morning and as he approached us in the water he began to scoop up the cling film thin seaweed sheets that were hanging around at waist level, he then chucked them at us, calling "Are you feeling a bit weedy this morning?!". It's his birthday next week, I have just the card....