Thursday, August 30
Sand Bay, 13:00
Today I stood firm and had no cooked breakfast at all. I had Frosties with a banana and milk, tea, and toast, and felt immediately better for it.
We had a slow start to the morning because today we should have celebrated Auo’s seventeenth birthday. Instead we chatted with Naa and Irma posted on social media, and we talked about things that never happened, and things that should have.
Later, we walked down to the sea front and waited for a number 1 bus to take us to Sand Bay. The bus passed the second, now-derelict pier at Birnbeck, and took us down a long, narrow, wooded coastal road.
To my surprise and delight we passed a Pontins Camp “especially for the over-50s”. I tried to explain it to Irma, who cackled delightedly when she finally saw the website later.
Sand Bay, when we got out of the bus, seemed little more than a long row of bungalow-style houses with a small hill and a long narrow beach on the other side.
As we walk along the road we notice that the incessant wind from the sea has blown any trees on the hillock into the shape of frozen flags. I photograph a couple of them. Later I will photograph bigger, bushier trees in the same shape.
We will not stay long, opting to catch the next bus back. We will both remark that we felt glad we had come: we liked the journey and the desolate nature of the destination. Irma will express surprise both at the large “holiday home” caravan parks we see when the bungalows finally end, and the fact that people would choose to come to them for their holiday.
Back in Weston we seek out the Post Office to buy postcards and stamps. On the way we will stop at a couple of charity shops. At the Salvation Army shop I will buy The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde’s first novel for 50p.
We will also pass Tesco where I will find Full English Breakfast available in a tin. We will stop at the Red Admiral to write our postcards. I will find ploughman’s lunch available in a bag. I will imagine that I have bought some ploughman’s lunch flavoured savoury snacks (whatever that might mean) but the bag will actually contain two cream crackers, some spreadable cheese, four small pickled onions in a plastic bag, and a plastic knife. The latter will send Irma into convulsions of laughter.
We will have an early dinner at The Old Thatched Cottage. I will have the salad Irma had last time, and she will have another chicken dish.
We will then return to the hotel and phone Naa, who has made a meal for Auo of her favourite uunilohi, which Sampo will help her eat.