YOU do your best with your kids to make sure they understand the glory of nature.

There is no doubt in your mind that they should be dragged around rainswept mountains and lakes rather than be allowed to spend time -- and your money -- in seaside arcades.

And you spend hours walking on the cliffs, ignoring desperate pleas for ice creams, pointing out the grace and poetry as seabirds glide effortlessly on the wind.

Then your offspring turn round in their teenage years and tell you, with feeling, that they are sick of blankin' puffins and do not understand why they cannot have foreign holidays like everybody else.

Parenthood is not easy.

But there comes a time when the kiddies have left home and you get the chance to re-visit old haunts.

That was why we found ourselves enjoying the spring sunshine at the RSPB Bempton Cliffs nature reserve, not far from Bridlington on the east coast.

It was an enjoyable part of the week-end we chose to spend near Scarborough -- rather than Paris -- to mark our 35th wedding anniversary.

Bempton is the largest seabird colony in England and is home to a breathtaking array of gannets, guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, fulmars -- and puffins.

Unfortunately, these engaging birds were mostly still out at sea, preparing to return to the cliffs to breed.

We thought we saw a pair flying, but we could not be sure.

No doubt we will have to go back again sometime between May and August to observe them from one of the viewpoints created along three miles of 400-ft high chalk cliffs.

Perhaps we could make it a nostalgic family outing. Then again, perhaps not.

Our trip to and from Scarborough was notable for another kind of bird-watching -- spotting dead pheasants by the roadside as we drove through Yorkshire.

Why do they cross the road and have they been killed at the beginning or end of their journey?

Somebody must know these things.

Back home in Bolton, we were shopping in the Market Hall for our tea and recounted some of our recent adventures to a friendly butcher.

He told us all about his dog which ran and ran on the beaches during a visit one year to the same area of the Yorkshire coast.

But on the last day the poor thing was simply exhausted and preferred not to go out. I bet you can guess where this story is going. Yup, this was a butcher's dog which was clearly not fit.

In fact, he told us, he had another dog once which needed a trip to the vet's surgery.

There he learned that the juicy bones which he provided were simply too rich for his pet because he was "killing it with kindness."

Finally, the BBC is currently inviting us to nominate our favourite novels in a "Big Read" survey and eventually we will learn which are the nation's top 100 books. I have already registered my vote for Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, a fantastic adventure which I had read seven times by the time I was 12. The picture created in my imagination has never been matched by film or television.

That's reading for you.