Not TBTA

Nor yet TB the A before last.

The reason being this: I was crunching through the oyster shells along the beach near these now rather famous beach huts on Saturday afternoon. It was very windy and there was hardly anybody else about, apart from some hardy windsurfers. All the beach huts were shut up tight against the elements. Or so I had thought, when some people suddenly emerged from one of them and I stopped for a chat. They'd only just acquired it and were busy 'moving in'.

Wishing them joy in their new retreat and bidding them goodbye, I took a step backwards . . . and pitched straight into a deep hole in the sand which I hadn't noticed was there! I landed on the hand which held my camera, forcing a thousand grains of sand between the rings of the zoom mechanism and into the open lens. All moving parts are jammed. Fantastic. 2008 is proving a vintage year for the destruction of life's essential gadgetry.

So one of today's little jobs is to find a camera repair shop to see if it's worth paying someone to take it to bits and clean it out, and then to find somewhere to take the card so I can at least retrieve the pics.

On Sunday, the weather was generally damp and dismal (just right for the first day of the children's new rugby season) but things brightened up in the afternoon and there was some spectacular light between showers. I walked with the dog for a couple of hours in the late afternoon, starting out in a downpour but ending in warm evening sunshine. The last of the beautiful old fishing smacks - out in force earlier in the day for Mersea's annual Oyster Dredging Match - were sailing home.

I took a few pics on my mobile phone but, despite wrestling with software and cables, I have not been able to persuade my PC to allow me to download them.

All most frustrating.