Early May and the weather forecast for London was fabulous. Hot, sunny - beach weather! So we headed off for Littlehampton on the Sussex Coast.
Short version. The weather forecast for London (and Essex, I was reliably informed) was not the same as the weather forecast for the Sussex Coast.
Slightly longer version. We packed our beach wear and headed off somewhere that was overcast, and a bit chilly. I didn't pack a cardigan or jacket. That was a mistake. We arrived back into London in the early evening, to see people basking on Commons, lazing outside pavement cafés and colonising beer gardens in shorts and flip flops.
Thankfully, despite the weather, it was a lovely day. The drive down was easy. The worst part was when we pulled over into a layby on the trunk road and gazed forlornly at the black clouds ahead and in the distance where we were heading. The breeze felt chilly. My phone app said it was 13 degrees locally, and 18 in London. Great choice! The best bit was the awesome drive through a valley in an area around Long Furlong, north of Worthing. Almost like a plain, the beautiful green fields of rural England. I noticed a lack of housing or farm buildings and suspected that this fertile agricultural land is owned probably by one rich land owner and the landscape is man made to maximise the crop yield. But coming so soon after a visit to Cyprus's bleak landscape, it seemed like beauty.
We timed our arrival in Littlehampton with perfection. We were told that the council have been hard landscaping the Riverside Walk for two years and it had just opened up the previous month. The seafront was quiet and I was reminded of songs by Morrissey and Chris de Burgh but neither quite describes an out-of-fashion seaside resort at season's start.
Everywhere at the seafront had that sense of being all prepared for the rush that hadn't quite started. Stalls with a fresh lick of paint laid out their bright toys despite the noticeable absence of children. The colourful funfair beckoned to people too old to want safe rides with slight excitement.
There were few people on the beach. Despite the signs barring dogs from May to September a couple took their dog onto the beach. A disembodied amplified voice rang out, telling them not to. I was impressed. They might have thought that the rules didn't apply to them, or, given the absence of anyone sitting on the beach, let alone children, the rule was in abeyance. But it wasn't. Because seaside towns know - or should know - their economy is dependent upon clean beaches attracting incomers. No one wants to unearth decaying dog doings dating from a dreary day in May.
We walked to the boating lake. I had a weird feeling that I had been here before but I have no memory of visiting Littlehampton and nowhere else seemed familiar. It was only when I got home and read up on the town I realised that this boating lake had featured in an early episode of The Inbetweeners, which I watched before it became fashionable.
There was a family not far from us. Father and toddler pretending to fish in the lake, mother on her phone. We walked down to the lake's edge, unconsciously choosing not to end up standing right next to them. The father saw us, glared at me and dragged his child up the grassy bank. I can only assume this was because I had my camera round my neck.
He might have had very good reason not to have his child photographed in an identifiable public place (eg he's a loving stepfather, and Mother and kid are in danger from a violent biological father). I respect that, although I'm sure not all amateur photographers do. I had no intention of photographing them, but, again, some other amateur may have been attracted by the sight of the attentive father teaching his boy to 'fish'.
But I still think he was rude. Put simply, there is no law against photographing random strangers in a public place. If I had taken a zoomed shot of them, there is no law to prevent me blogging it. But their right to freedom from violence is more important than my right to free expression, I just don't see where my responsibility lies in this assumed scenario. And I don't think it warrants his hostility!
We stopped for coffee in The Contented Pig. Odd place. I had a lovely chocolate and cherry cake. Nicely decorated, if slightly clichéd - carefully arranged junk; table decorated with a bottle of flowers, a Kilner jar of sugar lumps, a metal bucket of cutlery.
But their menu looked dated, straight from the 1970s. Laminated green cardboard, text in ALL CAPS in a dated font, and poorly described food eg cheese and tomato sandwich was a turn off. Yet, looking at the sandwiches delivered to other customers, I was pretty sure they would be South Downs or Sussex artisan cheese on 'proper' wholemeal. The waitress slopped both coffees as she brought them to our table. "D'you want me to clean up?" she asked, expecting the answer to be 'no', when she should have said "I'm sorry, shall I replace those?".
Later, we went into The River Breeze for decidedly mediocre fish and chips - greasy plaice, dull chips, peas that weren't even pea colour, and inedible, and tea out of a terminally drippy teapot.
We spent most of the rest of the day strolling around the town. A soulless uninspiring place. I presume it's prosperous - politically Conservative, commutable to London, house prices comparable to South London - but the people looked as depressed and rundown as the town itself. Similar to what I observed in Chertsey. The English town centre is dead and needs reinventing.
We crossed the River Arun to West Beach. The original purpose of the day was to go to Climping Beach, recommended by both the internet and a friend as being one of the best beaches, so I now can't remember why we ended up in Littlehampton Town, rather than Climping Beach car park, a couple of miles from where we parked, and strolled around as the temperature plummeted.
The beach and its immediate surrounds are a nature reserve, but just inland is the inevitable golf course, with its unnaturally mown grass and its men posturing in garish age inappropriate hobby specific clothing.
The tide had turned, so we watched boats coming into harbour.
But the weather wasn't improving, so we went home.
We passed a new housing development outside the town. This was on elevated ground and should have afforded a decent view of the estuary. But, bizarrely, the houses were all oriented wrongly. the windowless gable ends faced the sea, the habitable rooms looked over a busy road.
