Holme & CleySpy!

I feel the need to spend more time with my Mother than I thought I would be – she feels like she's grieving. I do understand – you spend your entire life with someone and then they are gone. She wants to visit father, but feels initially this will make him worse, which I am inclined to agree with to be honest. I know he will plead to come home when she visits and that will be very difficult for her to deal with – he says to me that he wants to come home when I've seen him, but I know he can't, so I'm probably coping with it better than mother would.

I arrived at my mother's house, a few minutes after her new mattress was delivered and helped her put all the sheets etc back. I spent a good while trying to persuade her to come to CleySpy with me, as she wants to buy some new binoculars. Her old Carl Zeiss Dialyt 7x42's are pretty old now and are out of alignment – but she refused to come with me and said she didn't feel up to it, but was happy for me to choose a pair! So, I left her my 'car/work bins', which are a pair of Nikon 8x25's and took the Carl Zeiss bins with me to get repaired, as she wants to keep these anyway.

Arrived at CleySpy and spent ages in there, selecting binoculars. Mother insisted she wanted a pair with a wide field of view, but I didn't want her having anything too heavy. My Swarovski EL 8.5x42's are heavy and I didn't want her to have anything of that weight. I ended up choosing either the new Swarovski EL 8x32's or the Kowa Genesis 8x33 Prominar binoculars. Obviously I would have chosen the Swarovski 8x32's, but the Kowa bins were on offer at £497 and there didn't seem like a £1000 difference between them to me. Also the field of view was obviously a fraction better on the Kowa's. I sought further advice from a local birder who turned up in the shop and long story short, bought the Kowa bins – very difficult buying binoculars for someone else. I also treated myself to a new Healthy Back Bag in black – my holiday treat!

Went to Beach Road, Gramborough, but it was so bitterly cold, I decided it wasn't worth the walk to Gramborough Hill – may sound lazy, but I felt really tired and it was seriously cold and very windy.