This fine April weather has given my high forehead a decent
bit of sun blush. “Look at your
tan! Have you been away?” people keep asking me.
“Yes. Whitstable!” I reply. Not quite Grenada (as I watch a turgid test match unfold in
the Caribbean), but very nice all the same.
We celebrated one Easter and two birthdays in a tall, thin house
close to the seafront. Close also to the Old Neptune pub, reputedly the only
boozer in England to be actually built on a beach. Doubly brilliant, it’s not a
Shepherd Neame pub! Coming to this part of Kent, with the brewer based down the
road in Faversham, it is inevitable that stale pints will be supped that are
drawn straight from the estuary and filtered to the pumps through a mucky duster.
Not a fan. So the Harveys on offer in the Old Neptune was eagerly
consumed.
Bex and GC recommended the place to us. Their party had
celebrated New Year here and I was a bit disappointed to find there was no leftover
wine in the fridge, nor beer in the cupboard. Bloody cleaners…
The house had four bedrooms. More than adequate for the four
of us, plus our friends Julie & Callum. Callum, however, didn’t need any of them. In some crazy
dare-bet with Daughter no 2, he had accepted a challenge not to sleep in the
bedrooms on any night of our stay, in return for the sum of £2. I’ll hold my
hand up to any amount of mug punting, but even I would struggle to squeeze the value
out of such a transaction.
His four nights, then, were spent in an upstairs linen
cupboard, a downstairs utility room, a cloakroom over the cellar and the back
of our car.
Callum went on to claim a further £2 from my spendthrift
daughter by fearlessly wading out into the April sea up to his neck. Paying up,
she said “Hmm. I wanted to see a bit more pain, really.”
We had stunning weather during our stay. Long walks along the beach whilst the dog exercised us. And long walks back into a headwind – hence the tan.
Great sunsets, too. (Well you have to...)
Despite this being Shepherd Neame country, we did well for ale. Local Whitstable brewery fare in the Pearsons Arms and Adnams in the Oyster Shack on the beach (reputedly the only shack to be actually built on a beach… oh no, maybe not.)
We met up a couple of times with our friends and Whitstable
inhabitants Jan & Ian and their family. Every time I come to this town I
like it more and more.
My only complaint was the lack of internet access. Yes, I’m
all for low-fi-get-away-from-it-all breaks. Any time at all. Except when I need
to make crucial, possibly life changing transfers in the jumps’ season Twelve
To Follow competition. Going in to Aintree I was leading the hungry pack
snapping at my heels, and feeling confident. It turned out that my inability to
do any intensive web-based research into the stats, entries, forums, and
general e-banter about the forthcoming Aintree meeting lost me the prize. Right
there. Only I didn’t know it at
the time. There will be more bleating and bellyaching about this in the next
post.
Packing up for home, I was doing a last sweep for dirty
socks and hidden glasses upstairs when I missed out a step between the loft
bedrooms. I went down like Latalomne at the second last and smashed my head in
to the door. I could feel the sinews in the back of my neck crackle as my head
was thrust back. It really hurt.
I had only two thoughts. The first, as I looked at the blood
smeared door panel was, ‘I hope we get our damage deposit back’; and the second
was, ‘I hope I don’t get concussion that stops me going to Aintree’. On the way home the girls were told to keep
poking me in case I fell asleep.
Very much like the test match in Grenada, it was all fine in
the end. Although I did have a nice big bruise to go with the tan: a door-kissed and sun-kissed forehead. This season’s winning combination.
Comments