Day 8: Monday 30th May 2011. It’s a national public holiday with a concert in honour of the troops. B.B.King is featured, but at 85 years of age, forgets to play the guitar. Otherwise deeply a moving event.

My grandmother told me her story of the day her father returned from the first world war. She was playing in the street when she saw him walking up the road, carrying his pack on his shoulder. She ran into the house and called, “Our Mam! Our Da is here!”. She was smacked and told that was a wicked thing to say. “But it’s true!” In our recent ancestry, before twitter, or before radio and telephones, momentous events could occur without warning, and I wonder which of us is living in a “strange” world.

We waked for miles all down the seafront to the piers where we stopped for sushi and Asahi beer, which was great. It’s a wonderful holiday atmosphere with many families doing a BBQ in the public parks and sea walks. My favorite is the custom cars cruising around for the day. I’ll take the 50’s chevrolet pickup.

There was an array of 1,500 white crosses on the beach, representing soldiers lost in Afghanistan. The war vets there were promoting the recall of troops from a pointless war. Very sad business. We went on to the mission to see the completed works of art on the pavement.