Don’t you just love week-ends where everything just seems to fall into place? The sun shone, it was hot. We went to the beach in Gorleston. We hadn’t planned to go to the beach but we ended up meeting friends, going to their dinky little house right by the sea for the first time, imagining what it would be like to smell the sea, hear the sea, wander by the sea every day. We drank tea on a beach full of families in various states of dress and undress and sometimes in-between, shuffling undergarments on and off under inadequate towels, people calling out to one another, shaking sand from clothes, rolling up wet swimming gear and stowing it in bags; swimmers and body-boarders, sailors and snorkellers. After a long walk and a long companionable talk, back for another cuppa and then to Gt Yarmouth – memories of childhood holidays, the push-penny arcade games, the neon lights, the clip-clop of horses up and down the prom. The fish and chips at the Las Palmas fish and chip restaurant were divine; hot, fresh, crisp and soaked in vinegar. Violently green mushy peas. Simply wonderful. Then on to the Hippodrome Circus – just as I remembered it aged 9, lights, music, laughter, high wire acts, synchronised swimming. It was 1962 all over again!
