While I was down on the beach in front of my house yesterday afternoon, I noticed some guys surveying the sea defences, and the beach levels. They were using theodolites, and lots of new fangled laser level equipment. Being a nosey cow I asked one of them what they were doing. He said that due to the rise in sea level the long shore drift of the shingle beds had pushed the beach level up by more than 60cm in the last year. So they were calculating how high the defences needed to be, or if there was any point in undertaking the necessary work. I had been wondering why I could now just step over the sea wall onto the beach. We used to have to walk down about 10 concrete steps. I get the feeling this global warming stuff is going to start affecting peoples lives a lot quicker than we think. If anyone's interested in knowing the area I'm talking about, it's the North Beach part of North Lowestoft.