We drove back from Yorkshire yesterday via the Bempton Cliffs RSPB reserve, where we were much too late for the puffins, but saw a large number of gannets, as well as catching a glimpse of their celebrity visitor of the season, a black-browed albatross.

I took lots of photos of the gannets, but the albatross was moving far too quickly for my camera.



The drive back was a lot better than the drive up, mostly because we were on the M1 rather than the A1, but it's still a long way to drive in one day (217 miles from the Tesco in Bridlington where I bought petrol to my house, according to the car) with only one brief stop for lunch. I was shattered by the time I got home and then ended up with my head spinning and my neck and shoulders feeling very peculiar, presumably because of spending such a long time sitting in the same position. (Hunching forward and clutching the steering wheel in a death-grip probably didn't help, but I don't understand how anyone is supposed to be relaxed while steering a large metal box at 70mph surrounded by other, often larger, metal boxes also going at 70mph.)

It was a good holiday, but driving nearly 600 miles in a week, with very few driving-free days, definitely wasn't ideal.