2 posts tagged “oh i do like to be beside the seaside”
Last weekend, in desperate need of an escape from London for a couple of days, Z and I packed a picnic, boarded a train, and set off on an adventure to the sunny shore of the Southeastern coast.
Before we go much further, perhaps I'd better set the scene. My main reason for selecting Margate as our destination was the Walpole Bay Hotel, which I'd been desperate to visit since I read about it online. But I'd never been to Margate before, and wasn't sure what to expect. The only Margate trivia I knew was that its station overlooks the only remaining rollercoaster of abandoned amusement park Dreamland, and that it's where Tracey Emin had her much-maligned childhood.
On our arrival I was somewhat concerned. There's no denying that the town has been hit hard by the decline in tourism since the advent of cheap air travel. The promenade is lined with dilapidated and closed-down shops and restaurants, the seagulls were almost as big as dogs, and the concrete steps down to the seafront covered in mad mis-spelt chalk-scrawled graffiti.
But anyone who knows me well will already be aware that I’ve had a love affair with Blackpool ever since my grandparents drove us there when I was little to see the illuminations. I love the romance of places like that; even though it’s been decades since their heyday, there’s definitely a decayed glamour about seaside towns that I can’t help but be enthralled by.
And despite the boarded-up buildings and sad-looking boarding houses, the remaining tourist attractions did not disappoint. Since our visit I've developed a bit of an obsession with the hauntingly sinister Shell Grotto, and Z is still sulking after I trounced him at Strokes Adventure Golf. At the Turner Contemporary Gallery we had a good old natter to a very sweet lady named Sadie, who told us all about the artistic community that seem to be thriving behind the scene in Margate, and the plans in place for its regeneration.
Apart from sightseeing, crazy golfing and wandering for miles along the beaches, we spent most of our time eating lots of cheesecake, drinking lots of wine and guzzling lots of tea from old-fashioned china teacups with saucers whilst sitting in the sunshine on our hotel balcony.
The Walpole Bay Hotel could not have been a more perfect mirror of my idiotic and whimsical obsession with all things old-fashioned if it’d had been kitted out specifically with me in mind. (Despite my searches, I’ve never yet found another hotel with an actual museum in it.) For the entire weekend it felt like we were much further away from London than the two-hour train ride, which was exactly what we needed. The fact that the vintage furniture and décor at the hotel (including a 1920s trellis lift in the reception, Edwardian-style restaurant, gentleman’s lounge and ballroom) made us feel that we’d been zapped back in time by several decades too was an unexpected but wonderful bonus. The only slight hitch was that I didn’t want to leave….
Want to know what I've been up to over the last few weeks? It's been a whirlwind, but an abbreviated version of my activities includes:
The most wonderful clubnight in all of Yorkshire (and maybe even the world), DJ'ed by two of my favourite chaps and involving copious amounts of gin mixed with wine, the hotpants playsuit, daisy barrettes, and day-job meetings deliberately scheduled to coincide so my train fare and hotel were taken care of. Losing my voice after Amy and I shrieking the lyrics to Ballroom Blitz at each other at maximum volume, and finding a dozen tiny plastic monkeys stolen from a pub board game in my underwear the next morning. Peanut butter sandwiches at three am and realising how amazing my friends are. Dancing until my feet were sore and my stockings in tatters. Knowing that although I'll never live in Leeds again, I do adore those types of visits. Other news: last Saturday in Manchester, two of my best friends got engaged:
GHB and I convened in Salford to get dolled up for celebratory Canal Street drinks:
Early on Easter Monday morning GW (My big brother, only not really. But of all my current friends he's the one I've known for longest) collected me from Salford in his shiny red sports car, and drove me to Didsbury with the top down, blaring obscene glam rock for the entire journey. Including the part where the traffic lights stopped us right outside the church my Mum used to drag me to in days gone by, and I slunk as low as possible in my seat and tried to hide my bottle of revoltingly cheap white wine and surreptitiously turn down the song about spanking whilst my chauffeur cackled and sped us away as soon as the lights turned green. Once we arrived in East Didsbury almost the entire old gang assembled and we picnicked like nobody's business until it got cold and dark.
It's taken me a while to recover from my jaunt to the North, not least because this past weekend I had a visit from Amy. This included a wonderfully quaint tea party and cake feast at Jess' 'Primrose Palace', cackling in the Fox until last orders with Z and quoting Guy Pearce in Factory Girl until I had to go to bed because my stomach hurt from laughing too hard. Then there was the Prodigy at Brixton Academy, dancing until 2 and nattering for the length of 2 night bus journeys across South London about how much we want to fuck Keith Flint.
After an action-packed March and April, this week me and Z will be concentrating on fussing over each to make sure we’re both shipshape and back to top form in time for our jaunt to the seaside this weekend. I can’t wait!
