THERE are fewer places more delightful than St Bees in the summer as some of the photographs on these pages show.

Sun, sea and sand are the answers to the stress of work and school and they can be guaranteed along our West Coast beaches.

Okay - we can guarantee sea and sand, but perhaps not the sun.

It is like everything, in fact it’s a bit like June. When the sun shines every day you start to appreciate the rain. When the sun shines on our West Coast we embrace it wholeheartedly.

It looks like there was quite a bit of sunshine when these photos were taken.

The sand art competition looks like it was fun and certainly led to the appearance of everything from a beached whale to some strange critters you would never want to come across in a dark alley.

There is also reference in the photos to the 'colourful coast'.

This is the coastline between Whitehaven and St Bees.

One of the projects involved people of the community spending past 10 years breathing new life into Haig Colliery, with the help of conservation organisations, and the former industrial portion of coastline is now a haven for wildlife.

Those lending a helping hand throughout the last decade include organisations of the Colourful Coast Partnership; the National Trust, Land Trust, Copeland Borough here is Council, Cumbria County Council and the RSPB.

There is a photo here of the St Bees lighthouse’s foghorn building. There is no information about the person opening it to the public but the reason it did open was because it showed views of what really is not just a colourful but a truly beautiful coastline.

We are sure that many of the people in these photographs appreciated the colourful coast and the beauty of the area.

Mostly, though, they would just have been living in the moment, whether it was surfing, swimming or creating sandy art on the beach.

Hope this summer turns out as good.