This past week has been half term. Well partly; it was for our youngest son. Eldest son being at college in Yorkshire was on half term the week before, but since he's in Monday to Wednesday, we made a flying visit to the south coast for my Mothers birthday.
Like most seaside resorts Bexhill on Sea doesn't really suit the winter. We normally visit for a week or so in August. Now in late February, without the light and warmth of the summer sun, the windblown streets are quiet. The cafes and restaurants that usually buzz with the activity of the city day-trippers, are dark and quiet. They wait for the better weather along with the ever present Herring Gulls, circling on the strong sea breeze, mournfully calling to each other, denied the scraps of food provided by the careless summer tourists.
None of this bothers our Border Collie of course. The chance to chase her ball on the beach is a rare treat. She leaps in and out of the waves with careless abandon. So much so youngest son has to wade into the water to retrieve her ball before it is carried away by the retreating tide. He curses the dog, she wags her soggy tail, shakes out a mixture of water and damp sand and urges him to throw the ball once more. At least he's finally cleaned his dirty shoes.
On Friday we make the pilgrimage to see my Nan. Soon to be 97, living independently in the same house my Mother and her siblings were brought up in. We have a birthday lunch with her and my aunt who lives a few miles down the road. Nan is slowing down a bit, but she insists she's definitely not deaf as I have shout our family news to her. She doesn't get up to the church as much as she used to, but the priest now comes to her once a week. Almost everyone that walks past the house waves at her. The old lady in her window is a fixture of Rye for so many, not just our large family that live nearby.
We take the chance to walk around the ancient town. I have been coming to visit family here all my life. The town has changed out of all recognition. The shops are now catering for tourists more than locals. As a kid, my cousin and I would frequent several of the shops on the High Street. Woolworths, long since gone is a council office and library. The banks have gone, as has Lipton's Grocers and Freeman Hardy & Willis shoes. The bookshop remains, as does Adams. When she left school, Nan got her first job working for the printers that was attached to Adams. The shop with its large oak framed windows is a newsagents, stationers and most important for me growing up, a toy shop. Walking in I remember the smell of the place. It is almost the same as it has always been. Copies of the national and local papers, magazines, pens, paper, envelopes and up the worn wooden staircase lots of toys. I'm suddenly distracted by a family from the Midlands, clearly on their own half term holiday. The children are running rings around their parents, wanting all the toys and threatening to combust if they don't get their own way. Mum is trying to restore order with a mixture of threat and compromise in her broad Brummie accent, while Dad is wondering if it's worth trying to bribe the kids with ice cream from the kiosk across the road.
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| Adams of Rye |
We wonder down to the Landgate, the surviving fortified entrance to the Town. It's twin Strandgate was demolished in 1815 after falling into disrepair. Where there was once a public toilet on the corner of Ropewalk is a Micropub. As the drizzle begins to fall we hurry inside to find a spacious and busy interior. It would be rude not to sample some local ale, and we are not generally considered rude.
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| Landgate, Rye |
Saturday finds us visiting Hastings. We decide to take advantage of the £2 bus fare cap and catch the 99 from the end of the road. The top deck affords a glorious view of the sea. Grey outlines of ferries and container ships can be seen on the horizon. Boulogne is 45 miles away across the channel, tantalisingly out of reach.
Hastings is busier being a weekend. Youngest son and I go in search of a Saveloy. This bright red sausage has always been a firm favourite of mine but you just cant find it here in Yorkshire. My wife and eldest son are less keen on them and visit a well known bakery chain for lunch instead. We enjoy a drink at a what appears to be an Elizabethan Inn, but was in fact built in 1947 using bomb damaged materials.
Returning on the bus we are reminded why we usually drive.
Now I like buses. Growing up in London I would travel on a Routemaster almost everywhere. You could happily watch the world go by from the top deck, even if the smokers made the view a bit foggy. The conductor selling purple ink tickets from his Gibson machine. The mothers prams tucked in the cupboard below the stairs. The bell string along the cabin ceiling. Nowadays of course buses only have drivers, there's no smoking thankfully and you pay by contactless card. The quality of some of the passengers however leaves something to be desired.
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| AEC Routemaster the backbone of London's Buses from 1956 to 2005 |
A father and his friend join us with their small children on the top deck. They swear continuously at the children for not being grateful enough for the day out they've enjoyed at the seaside arcades.
"I'm not f*****g taking you anywhere again."
"Don't eat all them sweets, you'll have f*****g dodgy poos all night."
Meanwhile a teenager in the front seat with black hoodie over his head and his feet up on the rail gets a phone call. He puts it on speaker of course, it's his Mum:
"Where are you?"
"What?" he shouts.
"I said where are you?"
"What?" louder this time.
"Where are you!?" Mum is exasperated.
"Glyne Gap."
"I'm going to Eastbourne so I won't be at home."
"Are you driving?" The lad is after a free trip with Mum.
"No I'm catching the train."
"Oh, right never mind." He hangs up.
The more respectful passengers roll their eyes. Thankfully we arrive in Bexhill and escape the circus.
We spend our last evening in Sussex drinking wine and enjoying a good laugh with Mum. She'll miss us when we go, the boys particularly, but my Brother and family are booked in for Easter which is only six weeks away. She needs that time to recover.
We returned on Sunday evening, a six hour drive unusually for us not disrupted by traffic.
Arriving home we discovered that the bathroom drain was blocked. We should have stayed on the coast.
