SEAGULLS are in the news and we are not surprised for as we promenaded along the bay at Lyme Regis recently we chuckled at the frantic antics of irate people fending off these aggressive, attacking birds.

Yes, we did laugh to ourselves. Shame on us. Funny though...

As the day was pretty hot we stopped for ice-creams. Then we continued our promenade along the front and I pointed out a beautiful Portland Stone building squeezed between two pale wash-painted houses.

Suddenly my salted caramel cone was twenty feet in the air.

I can still feel the brush of the seagulls’ wing on my cheek. No more chuckling as I watched Sid the seagull hurriedly devouring my cornet.

A few days later we arrived home and it would appear that Sid and his sizeable feathered friends had followed us. Was I a soft touch? For as I write, there are six sinister seagulls that have gathered, one by one, standing stock still, and perched on a prime vantage point being a nearby roof. We are being watched. We are all being watched. A seagulls’ nerveless audacity knows no bounds especially when they hunt in pairs.

So readers beware. Images of the wonderfully lugubrious Alfred Hitchcock come to mind.

John Porter Millway Road, Andover