As hotel breakfasts go ours was down there: 🙂Pretty grotty. Didn’t really have any expectations as we booked this palace for proximity to last night’s Pink Martini gig. The gig was fantastic. Tbh my expectations of hotel breakfasts anywhere are not high and this place met them
Now sitting in the window of Room 101 watching the marine traffic go by. A pretty historic place really, the Thames estuary. You can imagine the number of ships that have passed by here over the centuries. From all over the world. The Empire.
I find the British Empire a fascinating subject. On the one hand its global reach and diversity was phenomenal. On the other hand, with hindsight, it was all wrong. I guess you play the hand you have at the time. The unfortunate thing is that some people in the UK, mostly politicians, cling on to the dream of Empire and the influence that came with it. They will mostly not be around after the next election.
I quite like the fact that to travel across the Empire it had to be mostly done by boat. Slow travel. Given the choice those travelling in this way would have preferred a quick ten hour flight, or twenty four hours at a push. They clearly don’t understand the baggage that comes with long haul airline travel. The jostling for an upgrade, can I get into the lounge etc etc.
So this morning we kiss goodbye to Southend On Sea, a place that didn’t gain universal approval of everyone in the travelling party and move along the coast briefly to Leigh on Sea and then Aldeburgh. I quite liked Southend on Sea. It is a classic British seaside resort with ice cream kiosks, chippies, a fairground and the world’s longest pier. Somewhere you could spend a day out.
We did wait forever in a cold wind for a taxi that never materialised but then I blagged my way onto the open top bus to drop me off a mile or so along the prom near to our hotel. Actually I didn’t have to do any blagging. When he found out I only wanted to go one stop the driver let me on for nothing. THG had already left to go back to the hotel.
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It must be said that being in Essex almost feels like being in a different country.
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I am off to Manchester at the end of the month from Lincoln. A single train ticket costs £29.85 on LNER. No advanced purchase options. Anytime single only.
However trainline.com offers me a place on the 09.15 for £12.95. Advanced purchase. Is there something wrong on the LNER site? I buy most of my tickets using LNER but can’t see it happening in future if you are so much more expensive.
There must be a software problem?
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So we’ve arrived in Aldeburgh. A few observations immediately spring to mind. The place is full of day trippers. Posh day trippers. This is totally at odds with Sarfend which although also had many day trippers, I imagine, few of them if any being posh.
It was pointless even to think about finding a free table in a caff. I queued outside an ice cream shop for what seemed like twenty minutes to get my double scoop vanilla and honeycomb. The kid in front of me in the queue said his family usually took a cottage nearby for four weeks. I didn’t bother looking into the posh kitchen shop, knowing its prices would not be targeted at me.
I’m hoping many of the day trippers will have buggered off home by four fifteen which is when we have to move the car. The free parking in front of the hotel begins to empty at this time, apaz.
We do have a nice room facing the sea and looking down over the petanque pitches, or whatever a boules playing area is called. There is a fish smokery directly outside the hotel and the pebbles on the beach are so nice they would be very suitable for our front drive. Obvs that’s not going to happen 🙂.
I am currently enjoying a cup of tea lovingly prepared for me by THG with, and wait for this, with a small packet of digestive biscuits for dunking. Digestive biscuits! This must be a good hotel. The only way they could better this were they to be bourbon creams.
Aldebough also seem to be home to quite a few Adnams pubs, all of which look to be worth a visit. Will have to see how it goes. Our dinner reservation is for eighteen thirty. Eating in the Brasserie as opposed to the attached curry house as Sunday is the one day they are closed. Huh.
Number of visitors and the scarcity of parking spots aside there is a sword hanging over Aldeburgh. The sword of the Sizewell nuclear power station, very visible up the coast to the north. Now I’m sure everyone has different views about nuclear power. I wonder why Winscale changed its name to Sellafield. Also I note that when I was a student, the manger of the Wylfa nuclear power plant in Anglesey lived in Chester according to one of our lecturers who was a mate of his.
Enough! I have to go and move the car.
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It must be said that the Conservative Party is a spent force in British politics. We have had four disastrous Prime Ministers – Dave Cameron, Treesa May, Boris, I’m an inveterate liar and totally useless at governing but have a way with words that cons a lot of people, Johnson, Liz, I’m not only totally useless but also very dangerous, Truss and now an ineffective lame duck called Dishi Rishi who could call an election but who is clinging on for as long as possible hoping for an unlikely miracle.
The Tories believe their only hope is to move further to the right in the belief that this is what will win them back votes. Reality is that it is only a vociferous minority whose votes this will attract. Most “ordinary” people are just totally fed up with them.
They can’t see that people who are poorer now than when the Tories came into power don’t want to vote for them. They are destroying the NHS and the education system. Doctors, nurses and teachers are leaving the profession like never before.
Government ranks are populated with third rate people who are only there because at some time they expressed support and admiration for BoJo. Most competent Tory politicians are no longer on the scene.
The hope is that the ranks of Tory MPs will be totally obliterated in the forthcoming general Election and the party will have to start again. Low grade extremists with a voice such as Suella Deville Braverman would better find their natural home in the Reform party and be relegated to a rightful obscurity, forgotten by history.