The Seaside

When Saturday dawned it was clear from the outset that the day would be, as they say in the "Old Country", super.  We had cracked a other great day in summer, the sort that makes them all forget just how crook living through last winter really was.

As did every other Londoner, we decided that a day by the sea was in order, so used some of Shell's bonus rail passes and took the two hour run to Bournemouth, the UK's "best beach", where one can buy the "tastiest fish and chips" and "tastiest pancakes" as well.   

When we were young, all of our reading material came from Britain, and it should not have come as a surprise to find this foreign environment so comfortingly familiar.  We walked along the promenade, paid our sixty pence to wander to the end of pier round the carousels and slippery slides, refrained from the temptations of the ice cream vendors but we did succumbed to the lure of the penny slot machines.

The beach wasn't too shabby, the fish and chips not bad either, and while we didn't taste the pancakes, the longer we stayed the greater the urge to roll up our trousers, plonk a knotted handkerchief on our heads and venture far too close to the wet stuff for respectability. One of our number, showing clear symptoms of living here for too long, donned swimming attire and even managed to feign mild enjoyment while braving the ocean blue.

It was a grand day for certain.  Perhaps it was a little churlish of me trying as I did, to imagine while we were there in the splendour of summer, what the place would be like in less than optimum weather, or perhaps the old gentleman with the dog on the railway platform was right.

"He's Australian too" he offered.

"Well we think he is.  His name is Bruce and he's a bit of a mongrel."