the quirky brunette: Go to Dungeness...

Dungeness | Athlete

“You’re in Dungeness on holiday?!”

So came the rather incredulous comment from one of my friends when I tagged myself on Facebook (or rather, tagged my gorgeous Knickerbocker Glory) at The Pilot Inn, Dungeness, in a rare moment of internet connection earlier in the week. My friend favours a more Mediterranean clime for her holidays, so her disbelief was understandable.

Scrummy cod, chips 'n' peas

Even scrummier Knickerbocker Glory

“I love it here!” was my response. And 'tis true: I love the bleakness of the marshes in Romney, the proximity (and then lack of proximity) of the sea; the tacky shops, the pubs, the mud banks, Derek Jarman’s ‘Prospect Cottage’ with its once-whimsical garden…

the lighthouses, and the smell of the steam from the miniature Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway. The unpredictability of the weather (I got sunburned on Monday, quite badly – good result despite the threat of melanoma…).

Early-morning sun on the sea

Oh and let’s not forget the power station.

My parents brought us to Littlestone when we were children; we rented a bungalow on the coast road for a week or two in the mid-1980s and my mother holidayed here in the 1950s.

I have a photo (somewhere in the QB annals) taken from the top of the Old Lighthouse of our car at the time, and my mum waving up at us; photos of us riding the donkeys, reclining in the sand dunes, splashing about on dinghies, schlepping through the mud, crouching in a hut in the Philippine Village. We have collective memories of walking through teeming rain to the arcades. Good, good times!

I do like a hot, sunny holiday (and for that I’m off to Spain in a couple of weeks) but there’s something to be said for a good old-fashioned British break especially on the coast. I’m definitely happier by the sea, and I’ve come to love the British tackiness of it all.

We hired a house in Lydd from the parents of one of my workmates; situated right on the marshes, within good walking distance of the beach (though it took us another good twenty-five minutes to find the sea on Sunday morning at low-tide…). We were forty-five minutes’ walk from the lighthouses, and the aforementioned power station. And never far from a pub or a Spar.

And we even had a swim. Yes, a swim. In the British sea in September. Climate change is no myth, people. (That said, it was freezing in places. FREEZING.)