All summer long the plan had been that we would wait for a suitable weather window and head for the far north in the early Autumn.  A combined lack of patience and unfavourable Met Office forecasts has found us in an entirely different place – Runswick Bay on the north Yorkshire coast, not far from the centre of all things Goth, Whitby (sorry meticulousmick, definitely north another time).  It is a special place ideally positioned for invigorating walks along the cliff-top sections of the Cleveland Way.  For three days we were rewarded with generally benign conditions walking as far as Staithes to the north and Ravenscar to the south. However, this morning we awoke to an entirely different place – the North Sea that had lain silent as a millpond was now a seething cauldron; it was like waking up to a landscape utterly changed by overnight snow.  Before and after:

(click on the images to enlarge)