Tuesday, August 28

 

 

We slept well in a bed twice the size of the one in the Peckham Rooms, and at least twice as comfortable. We woke to welcome quiet at 8:30, washed, and went downstairs for breakfast.

I opted for the English Breakfast. Rob warned me that the large one might give me a heart attack, so I opted for the medium one. This will merely give me indigestion for the rest of the day. I will feel the need for out-patient treatment but nothing more.

After we had recovered we walked down to the seafront, turned left, and walked along to the Grand Pier, where we turned left again to the town centre. We looked around where the busses all stop and then went into the High Street.

We spent the morning looking around the shops and occasionally actually shopping. As we did my stomach felt worse and worse.

When Irma felt hungry we walked back along the front to have lunch at the Old Thatched Cottage. Irma had a grilled chicken salad and a beer, and I had a pot of tea.

The pier dominates the seafront to our left and the jetty for the lifeboats dominates to our right. We sit on some benches on the sea front, after I have photographed the pier from the town side of the road. Irma finds the tide amazing. Finland has little to no tides and she finds the fact that the sea completely disappears, and then roars back in, extraordinary.

At 16:30 we will walk along to Knightstone island (not actually an island at all) where the lifeboats live and find a little café called Stones. Irma will want a beer and I will decide to have one too. My stomach will accept this grudgingly.

Just beyond The Criterion we had noticed a shop called The Shopping Basket. We will decide to pay a visit and see what we can find for a light meal. I will find a Jamaican patty, and some cheese sticks to dip into pickle. Irma will find something similar.

Opposite we will notice The Beer Basket, an off licence, where the shopkeeper will tell us about 4Britain “a new, common-sense, middle-of-the-road political party” which will prove none of these things when I look it up online later.

We will spend the evening eating our uninspiring snacks while drinking ice-cold Thatcher’s Haze, a local cider the common-sense shopkeeper had in his chiller.