Ease your feet in the sea

I haven't written much about recent activities, because there has been a bit of a summer lull. A couple of weeks ago, we went to the London honey festival at the Southbank where I purchased a pot produced in London Fields - hopefully the flora there is similar to Stoke Newington's so as to help with my early spring hayfever. Last weekend, I woke up ill which was a bit of a pisser on a bank holiday. We dragged ourselves to Robert's birthday, around the marshes, to the pop-up pub on an industrial estate, and to Dalston for brunch, but the planned end-of-summer trip to the seaside had to be put on hold until yesterday, which turned out to be a good idea what with last Saturday's drizzle and this weekend's hot hot sunshine.



After my last traumatic experience with the HS train, we get the normal one from Victoria down to Whitstable, home of the oyster and W. Somerset Maugham. The road from the station to the town leads us to the unprepossessing harbour so, after chips on the prom, we turn right and walk to Tankerton over the stone-strewn beach, past hundreds of gaily painted beach-huts and dog-walking folk. I ease my feet off in the sea, but paddling is painful because of the pebbles. After a restorative ice-cream at Jo-jo's, we walk back and realise that the harbour is more than an industrial estate: lots of little huts selling farmers' markety things, and a jumble of fishermen's cottages, cafes, pubs, fish shops, oyster recyling, and little alleys. We accidentally walk past Squeeze Gut Alley but maybe we wouldn't have been able to get down it anyway after the traditional seaside food.



On the way back, the woman behind us refuses to take her two year old son to the toilet because "the train's too crowded" and instead encourages him to pee in a plastic bottle. "If you piss your pants, you're getting a slap". To be honest, it makes a nice change from Stoke Newingtony "No, darling you can't have a museli bar, we've got some granola at home" kind of parenting, and it seems one of the times that a child is actually justified in bursting into screams.

Ease your feet in the sea

I haven't written much about recent activities, because there has been a bit of a summer lull. A couple of weeks ago, we went to the London honey festival at the Southbank where I purchased a pot produced in London Fields - hopefully the flora there is similar to Stoke Newington's so as to help with my early spring hayfever. Last weekend, I woke up ill which was a bit of a pisser on a bank holiday. We dragged ourselves to Robert's birthday, around the marshes, to the pop-up pub on an industrial estate, and to Dalston for brunch, but the planned end-of-summer trip to the seaside had to be put on hold until yesterday, which turned out to be a good idea what with last Saturday's drizzle and this weekend's hot hot sunshine.



After my last traumatic experience with the HS train, we get the normal one from Victoria down to Whitstable, home of the oyster and W. Somerset Maugham. The road from the station to the town leads us to the unprepossessing harbour so, after chips on the prom, we turn right and walk to Tankerton over the stone-strewn beach, past hundreds of gaily painted beach-huts and dog-walking folk. I ease my feet off in the sea, but paddling is painful because of the pebbles. After a restorative ice-cream at Jo-jo's, we walk back and realise that the harbour is more than an industrial estate: lots of little huts selling farmers' markety things, and a jumble of fishermen's cottages, cafes, pubs, fish shops, oyster recyling, and little alleys. We accidentally walk past Squeeze Gut Alley but maybe we wouldn't have been able to get down it anyway after the traditional seaside food.



On the way back, the woman behind us refuses to take her two year old son to the toilet because "the train's too crowded" and instead encourages him to pee in a plastic bottle. "If you piss your pants, you're getting a slap". To be honest, it makes a nice change from Stoke Newingtony "No, darling you can't have a museli bar, we've got some granola at home" kind of parenting, and it seems one of the times that a child is actually justified in bursting into screams.