TRADITION

Good Friday tradition in these parts is that you go to your favourite chippy and queue round the block for your lunch. In fact the local paper usually runs a photo-feature the next day on Good Friday chip shop queues. Journalism at its finest! Verrills is almost legendary, attracting Hartlepool expats and celebs from all over the world, though it's not my favourite. They probably opened at about 11.30 am, and this was the queue at 1 o'clock today and it was just as long an hour later. Normally they have very bizarre (and short) opening hours, but they seem to know their market. The gulls also regard Good Friday as a red-letter day, and turn out mob-handed to see what they can steal (see extra). We decided against fish & chips today, and went down to the beach instead to watch the eider ducks swim past (extra).