Day Nine - Walking into sadness

Thursday, 9th August 2018

 Much cooler this morning, just 13℃, noticeable over night as we slept better than we had over the last week or so.

After a cooked breakfast, we decided to explore some of the bays on the northern coast and headed to Staithes, a seaside village just 10 miles from where we were.

We parked, as always now it seems, at the top of the hill and walked down into the village and the small harbour.  Delightful fisherman's cottages in rows on narrow streets and the usual assortment of cafes, gift shops and a couple of pubs.

We wandered through the streets, looking in shop windows, taking photographs, pleased at how quiet it was.

The narrow streets of Staithes.
Staithes Harbour.













On reaching the harbour we noticed a couple of white vans with enormous satellite dishes on top and soon discovered they were BBC vans.  We overheard someone speaking about "the tragedy" and the opening of a book of condolence and quickly realised that this was the beach where a 9 year old girl was killed the day before by a rock fall.

We had heard and seen a mention of this on yesterday's evening news but had not taken in the name of the place where the accident happened. We were struck with immediate feelings of guilt. Guilty of appearing ghoulish, and understanding now why it was so quiet.

We slowly made our way back to the car, up hill of course, and decided it was time for lunch. We had seen signs to a couple of pubs on the drive to Staithes.

Heading towards home we saw a sign for The Ellerby Country Inn and made our way there.

A good choice.  We had lunch in an attractive bar, delightful people and superb food.

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