At Ballymacormick Point

Today was a Volunteer Day; an NT Weekend Group volunteer day, at any rate. We weren't meeting till 10 am, so I had a leisurely drive via the Craigantlet Road, skirting the lovely Clandeboye estate; which reminds me, they said they'd send me some promotional voucher for Lady Dufferin's Clandeboye Yoghurt, her latest enterprise, and I still eagerly await it.

We all met at the Banks car park, at Ballyholme Bay, and proceeded to a location near Ballymacormick Point where we removed a section of old fencing. The National Trust owns and protects the coastline at this point in County Down.

The weather was absolutely fine: sunny, dry, calm and quite warm. The birds were all singing away happily as we toiled away.

We lunched back at the car park, carrying our packed lunches down to the retaining wall at the beach; and the prospect today was beautiful, viewing the maritime traffic on Belfast Lough, the Brent geese on the shoreline, and dog walkers playing with their canine friends on the beach.

I had my usual cheese-and-onion sandwiches, washed down with a few beakers of tea.

After lunch, reinforcements arrived and, armed with black bin bags, gloves and those aluminium things which assist you to lift litter without bending down - what are they called? - we managed to collect twenty-two bags of litter from the shoreline.

I drove home with the hood down, the weather was so fine today.