Monday - Once more onto the beach dear friends.

Good news. Today we have found a guitar for me, we have rented one from a music school. (£10.00 a month) and it sounds quite nice, basic, but nice.

Since we had to go to Sarasota to pick up some ramps for Sally’s chair we thought it would be nice to go to the famous beaches there.

The beach is a huge sand spit about 20 miles long, made up entirely of white sand .

We found ourselves a nice quiet beach on Longboat Key and set up the chairs and umbrella.

Because I was not sure of the local swimming conditions (red tide, jellyfish and rip tides) I thought it would be good to ask a local, so I trudged along the beach about 150 yards to the closest sun worshiping family, unfortunately they were from Iceland.

No worry, a family was coming down the beach, I asked them, unfortunately they were from Peru.

No matter, there were a couple of beachcombers approaching from afar, dark brown and very local looking, so I waited for them to come past and asked them about swimming conditions here. They unfortunately were a German couple who were enjoying the lovely beach.

At this point I thought “*** it” and threw myself into the sea, which was lovely, clear and warm. Ron came for a swim as well, keeping a wary eye out for sharks (he is convinced that sharks lurk in every stretch of sea water).

On our way back we stopped for a meal at an Amish Style Restaurant, although the surroundings were very nice the food was a bit average. Then we drove back over the Skyway Bridge to Tampa – this is a huge bridge several miles long. We caught it just as the sun was setting, it looked fabulous