My dear Family & Friends
I was thinking about ducking out of writing a letter this week – not because nothing happened, but because I was in one of those immobile moods. You know, the spirit was willing, but the motivation had its feet up watching TV. The weather has also been particularly crap for the past few days, adding a soporific somnolent element to my outlook. But then I called my sister, Barbara, in Portugal to ask about possible dates that we could visit her and husband Terry for our intended vacation at the end of August. Both of them wanted to know where my weekly letter was. So, after booking our flights to Faro from Coventry Airport online, I put on my new thinking hat, cracked open a beer, and sat down to write. Such pressure. Lucia wanted to know why the hell I was wearing my hat sitting at the computer. Let me add that Terry has written a weekly missive to his wider family for nearly 30 years since he was appointed as the SABC correspondent in London in the early 1980’s.
And talking of booking the flights online – sometimes I really get quite maddened with the way some companies and other Internet businesses screw up things that should be so simple. Lucia found flights from Coventry on Thomsonfly at a really good price. Then we took some time to discuss the dates and then, finally, Lucia pressed the “Continue” button – at which point a little box popped up saying “Your session has ended. Redirecting to booking page.” That was annoying, but then we tried to find the same flights at the same price again and we couldn’t. So I booted up my computer, and we both sat there on our computers trying to find the deal Lucia had initially found. If you have found it once, surely it should be such a simple matter to find it again. But it’s my experience that that seldom happens when you’re dealing travel companies or airlines on the Internet. I always get this uneasy feeling that they’re just trying to screw me. In this instance, the price differential was more than £100 (say R1500). We eventually did find the deal we were looking for, but only by telling the Thomsonfly website that we were looking for something completely different. Anyway, we have booked and paid, so we’re going to Portugal at the end of August. Lucia has booked a visa interview at the Portuguese consulate in London for next week. And that’s a different story. In SA, we just had to hand in a visa application at the consulate; here in the UK, you have to go for an interview which is booked out months in advance. It’s crazy. We are going to try and get Lucia a multiple entry Schengen visa so that we don’t have to go through this circus every time we want to go to Europe.
But jumping back to last weekend, we had Richard and Anne around for dinner on Saturday and had a wonderful evening. (Anne is a former colleague of Lucia’s from MillwardBrown.) Lucia made the starter of litchis and blue cheese, and I cooked my favourite Portuguese chicken rice dish as the main course. Desert nearly didn’t happen because the raspberries I’d bought from Sainsbury’s on a “buy one get one free” (bogof) deal had turned sort of black and soggy. Anne picked through them one by one to rescue the edible fruit which we then served with Hagen-Dazs ice cream. Richard and Anne stayed over for the night which meant that Richard and I could continue talking way into the small hours long after Lucia and Anne had crashed into bed. Richard and Anne were wonderful company and I gained a lot more insight into life in the UK.
On Tuesday I continued with my project of trying to find the nearest “beach goers” beach. This time I headed south down the M5 motorway stopping first at Weston-Super-Mare which is a few miles past Bristol. (You can see the pictures at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones as usual.) Weston-Super-Mare ain’t it. It’s still very much on the Severn estuary and the beach consists mostly of brown mud that has washed down the Severn over millions years rather than golden sea sand that I was looking for. The estuary is shallow and at low tide the sea can retreat more than a kilometre out into the bay. Across the bay, 20 or 25 miles away, one can just make out the industrial expanse of Wales’ southern coast. The town itself is a bit like Fish Hook – it has lots of retirement developments and has the same unhurried feel. John Cleese was born here and one can immediately see where he got his inspiration from for Fawlty Towers. By midmorning the promenade was full with people out for a stroll or just sitting on the benches looking out to sea passing the time of day. Tour busses full of excited school children out for a day at the beach disgorged their squealing passengers to the waiting seaside attractions. I let the dogs go for a run on the beach in the designated area and then sat down for a cappuccino at a Victorian cafe before getting back in the car to continue my search.
I hugged the coast to the town of Minehead where I lunched on the patio of a seafood restaurant at the furthest end of the beach one could still reach by car. Edgar and Hazel were the delight of my fellow diners, all of them retirees. I provided them with even more amusement when a seagull crapped on my head. (Nothing that water couldn’t fix.) The restaurant parrot was a bit more unhappy with the dogs and kept up a steady stream of hellos, bugger off, fuck it, give us a kiss, and ahoy there throughout lunch. The pensioners said he hadn’t uttered a sound until the dogs arrived.
From Minehead I stopped next at the fishing village of Lynmouth, and then crossed part of Sedgmoor and Exmoor to Barnstaple. My map book indicated that I would find some sandy beaches facing the Atlantic Ocean just outside the town. By the time I got there it was late afternoon and the promised storms were beginning to blow in – but I certainly wasn’t going to let a little rain get between me and the beach I’d been looking for. It felt so good to feel fine white sand between my toes again. I was expecting the water to be icy but, believe me, it’s a hell of a lot colder on the Atlantic seaboard in Cape Town. Edgar and Hazel were in their element. They seemed to be asking me why we hadn’t been to the beach for such a long time. I walked three or four kilometres down the beach before the ever darkening skies seemed to suggest that I should turn back – but the skies opened up and gave me a drenching anyway. Back at the car I dried us all as best I could with the only towel I’d brought along .... and then drove the 190 miles back home.
Next time I’ll drive west into Wales and see how long it takes me to get to the sea that way.
That’s it for now.
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
