I was too early.
Today I rushed down to the seaside, ready to welcome Spring.
Or maybe I got muddled and thought it was actually Summer because we’d had two nice days in a row.
Yes, I really did pack flipflops and swimmers with a little laugh to myself
And a packed lunch
And I dared to just wear an anorak.
When I got there, everyone seemed a bit subdued.
The guy at the cafe on the front humoured my enthusiastic announcements as he made my tea -
“I’ve come down from London for the day because it’s such lovely weather”
And it was lovely.
In that English grey kind of way.
There was no rain, mind you.
And it really felt quite warm in some moments
And there were even a few people wearing shorts
Alongside the people encased in their puffer cocoons.
I did all the things I was supposed to do - getting hypnotised by the waves, admiring the seagull antics and the stripy beach huts, rustling about in kaleidoscopic lanes of seaside kitsch, feeling zesty walking headlong into the buffeting sea breeze.
My Urban Cobwebs most definitely got ion-ed out.
I did all the things.
I’d had a romantic notion that wave after wave of sea-soaked words would pour forth if I took myself off for the day.
And after some time sitting in a cafe overlooking the dilapidated spidery pier skeleton, I realised that I was, in fact, slowly sinking in wave after wave of 80s hits. And that, whilst I really loved that the staff were singing along, it was time to go home.
And that I had been, perhaps, just a little too early.
