Merry-go-round, not the sea and lecture.

1. It is a day of saying yes so we let Alec climb aboard the merry-go-round and he goes round in the top of 'Showboat' looking very serious and not at all merry.

2. It's Bettany's first time by the sea and when we get to the edge of the beach we try to draw her attention towards the great expanse of grey sea, rolling and sighing under the flat white sky. She is far more interested in the traffic chuntering along Hastings seafront.

2b. The cafe where we have lunch proudly announces that its sausages are Hoad's Korkers, my father's favourite. I tell my family that whenever splendid regional sausages are placed before Grandpa he solemnly pronounces them to be "Not as good as Hoad's Korkers."
When Alec offers me a piece of his I take it gladly -- to me it is the taste of Saturdays.

3. While Alec and I are inspecting a hard-to-date stone anchor at the Shipwreck Museum a little girl comes into the room. She is wearing a grey jumper with a sequinned collar that lights up her face. Alec starts to lecture her: "It's a stone anchor and they threw it overboard to stop the boat but one day they forgot to tie the rope on and it fell in the water and got lost and they found it again when my mummy was six."
She looks at him seriously and says "When my daddy was a little boy he fell out of a boat and died and they took him to hospital and cut his arms off."

3b. Among the artefacts brought up by divers from a 16th century wreck is a leather hat that looks rather like Indy's iconic fedora.