"Excuse me, do you live locally?" Bob boldly enquires.
"Yes, yes we do." the dog-walking ladies reply.
"In that case, did I just see a goat?"

It seems like you did. They were introduced to keep invasive vegetation and the gorse that clings to the cliffs in check, the very gorse that helped to name that toon.

They make the occasional appearance up near the path but there'll be no further sightings, no kidding, this afternoon, shame.

So Boscombe is a suburb of Bournemouth, really, but locals take great pride in their separate identity. That makes it worthy of a mention, perhaps, since it's also where the football club plays and Bos Vegas has done enough to earn its own reputation.

It's also worthy of a mention, maybe, because, well, it's got goats in it!

There's no point trying to show you the bright lights of Bournemouth because the light is too, well, bright. The sun is doing some blinding work on its way west, you see, following a protracted period overhead.

Have instead, atop the cliffs, a sizeable and sandy bit of heath with a fair bit of flitting and whistling wildlife in the shrubbery. It's also not too far from where you might see a goat, no kidding, again.

Some squinting may be required but you can't fail to miss some serious zig-zagging down to Boscombe's brilliant, Blue-Flag beach.

The beach huts aren't nearly as exclusive as the ones on Hengistbury Head and change hands for just a five-digit number of £s. That's without running water, remember, at least not until the next storm surge, eh?

The schools haven't long gone back so that explains the lack of activity on the sand on what could officially be termed today as a 'scorcher' and they'd have wished for this weather last month.

Oh! Seems there was no need although the mercury didn't quite nudge the record 34°C recorded in 1976 despite 2022 being the UK's hottest year on record. That's something that didn't go unnoticed by SlyBob and, I don't know, is there like some scientists or something who have also noticed the same thing, right Greta?

Boscombe Pier beckons but that's the wrong direction so, with the sun now back behind, it's a pleasant plod along the promenade in the hope of spotting a goat. Not wishing to bleat on about it but they insist on remaining hidden besides, remembering the steep drop down, thoughts are now on the haul back up in this heat.

If only there was some, oh! Of course there is, like SlyBob didn't know already.

Every piece of still-functioning, Victorian engineering will make some claim but this operation is interwar era so can't even claim 100 years of working, yet. That means Saltburn stays as the oldest, Aberystwyth the longest and Hastings the steepest but this one is, get this, the shortest.

Hardly worth boasting about but that now seems to be the full set collected, not unless there's one somewhere that claims to be the widest?

There's a fellow traveller but she seems to be clicking something and then something remarkable happened...

One of SlyBob is the millionth passenger since the cars were replaced in 2012 and the Bournemouth Tourist Board's prize is a two-night stay at the Hilton Hotel and a visit to the Army's 13th Signal Regiment to meet their regimental goat 'Reggie'.

Only kidding. The 13th Signal Regiment haven't got a goat, silly.