Midsummer's Day Party, West Bay, 7pm

How we talked of the battenberg. How we dreamt of cinder toffee, salted margaritas in frosted glasses, slices of delightfully crunchy polenta cake beneath a cloudless sky. But in style far more fitting to the blog, the day gets darker and darker until by 7pm, the sea's horizon has turned to the famous 'low, leaden line' and an icy gale is blowing down the beach. KH and SS have bailed - my support team has been disinvited - so it's only I, The Mascot, SW and his support team who meet to huddle beneath the cliffs. To make it worse, SW expresses an unwillingness to swim which worms it's way into my determination. Things are looking bad. At this moment, SN appears, gusted along the beach, and my determination is rekindled. We all three plunge in and have a long, brilliant swim in the grey, warm, choppy waters. With things back on track, we inhale delicious, cliff resembling battenberg and umm... Homemade cinder toffee (there is some incredulity at it's resemblance to sliced up crunchie) and, warmer post swim than pre, talk merrily of the blog and our winter season. What a joyous triumph it has been. And somehow, the party is exactly as it should be - depleted numbers, cold, grey, rainy, windy - but suitably pleasurably insane.