We went for an early lunch at a new restaurant which had great views over the beach and to the island. In the past, food options at the seaside resort had been decidedly second-rate so I was pleased there was now a decent eatery. Nick had noticed a sign advertising boat trips and we thought the price was reasonable for a half hour ride to the other side of the island so we booked it. The young, friendly guy led us a few hundred yards down the riverbank to a smart speedboat.
After cautiously slow progress out to the mouth of the river, he opened the throttle once in the sea, and we sped round to the open bay. Emily seemed to enjoy the experience.
On the way back the driver unexpectedly offered Nick a chance to handle the boat for five minutes or so. Perhaps it was a reward for Nick's Japanese ability - I expect he had been dreading spending half an hour with a family of foreigners he couldn't chat to, and must have been relieved to find his customer could talk to him. On enquiry we learned that a boat like that would set us back around 10 million yen (currently equating to about 80,000 quid), so any dreams we had suddenly formulated of buying one soon dissipated!
Once on dry land we walked over the causeway to Enoshima island. As ever, it was packed up the one street, which is lined with food stalls and tacky gift shops. We walked up the steps as far as the first temple and washed some more money, then wandered back down again. By now we were very hungry again so we decided to make our way back slowly, and stop off at another new cafe/restaurant we had noticed earlier by the mooring place, Diego By The River. This proved an excellent choice and we filled our faces with dessert. We rather over-ordered because Emily's fruit pancake turned out to be a gigantic and scrumptious concoction that we could have shared between us.
On the way back to the station we couldn't resist buying Emily an addition to her train set. This was a cute little Enoden train, plus a miniature of Enoshima island, complete with its shapely tower and a red torii (shrine gate), but the icing on the cake was a model daibutsu (the big Buddha of Hase). If we go back home this will be one item no future friend of hers will ever duplicate!
For my weekly run I felt that as I have been comfortably managing a full hour it was time to increase the time to 70 minutes. I completed this without trouble, apart from a bit of a calf niggle that developed towards the end. On my way I saw many more other runners than usual and put this down to practice for next month's international marathon (which Oli is taking part in). At home I got a reading of 62.9kg, which I was happy with, after a week with many slip-ups.
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