Men at Play ...

... and at work.

We had lots of little things to attend to today - shopping, prescriptions, garage, shoe-menders - and accomplishing them involved driving around several of the Borders towns. 

After lunch in Berwick we went for a walk around the walls -Elizabethan and intact - and as always we were drawn towards the river where there was some unusual activity, involving half a dozen men, a small boat and a large net. It dawned on us that they were netting the mouth of the river to trap wild salmon. There's a long tradition of this on the Tweed, but we both were under the impression that it was banned nowadays.

Apparently not, though there are strict rules about when they can do it. One man rowed the coble round in a large circle dropping the net into the water, and when he got back onto the little island they all set to and winched it in. As far as we could tell, they caught nothing - but the sun was very bright and they were quite a distance from us, so I'm not sure. My best attempt at a shot is the extra.

It was such a lovely afternoon that we carried on up to Coldingham for another walk. There weren't many people on the beach, so this group of senior citizens had plenty of room for their games - a bit of larking around with a rugby ball followed by a more sedate boules match.