Saturday 15 September 2012

Oh, I Do Like To be Beside the Seaside!

We've had a few warm days recently, but it's not been much of a summer, so when I came across these seaside pictures, taken in Bognor Regis a couple of years ago, it conjured up images of a lovely hot autumnal day during a mini-break down on the south coast. So, even though I've used them before, I couldn't resist posting them again for a Saturday Snapshot, with apologies to anyone who has already seen them!
When I was a child we holidayed in and around Bognor on several occasions, and I remember a bustling seafront, packed with deckchairs on the shingle beach, and crowds of shrieking children paddling in the sea. But when we visited in October 2010, despite the blue sky and sunshine, it had the deserted out-of-season look common to most seaside towns at this time of the year, and it seemed smaller and less prosperous than I remembered.
Most of the businesses based in the brightly coloured wooden huts on the promenade had locked up for the winter but a few were still plying their trade. I was tempted to buy a shiny, metallic windmill, stuck into a polystyrene base sculpted into sand-dunes and painted a particularly bilious shade of yellow - but the display was so cheery and cheeky it seemed a shame to disturb it.
We sat on garden chairs beside a strangely impermanent-looking cafe, and sipped scalding hot tea in paper cartons as we watched the waves break on the shore, where a small boy, undeterred by the lack of sand, set to with his plastic bucket and spade to create a stonecastle, surrounded by a traditional moat.
We listened to the cries of the seagulls, and the swoosh and crunch of the waves on the shingle, soaked up the sunshine, stared into the horizon where the sea and sky merged into each other and felt at peace with the world.
I'm sure we enjoyed it more than George V, who stayed there in 1929, recuperating from illness, and residents were so delighted with this honour they asked his permission to add Regis to the town's name. Royal assent was given, but the king seems to have been unimpressed - his final words are alleged to have been 'Bugger Bognor', uttered when someone suggested he would soon be well enough to visit the resort again! Sadly, perhaps, I think this is an urban myth, and there seems to be no evidence to back it up.


For more Saturday Snapshots see  Alice's blog at http://athomewithbooks.net/ 



54 comments:

  1. What a lovely set of photos. I hadn't seen them before so was glad to see them today, although those pebbly beaches always look so cold and bleak to my Aussie eyes....

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    1. Louise, I love hunting for interesting stones on pebble beaches - and we do have sandy beaches as well!

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  2. I want ONE OF EACH of the menu-options on that wooden hut there!
    And a second helping of ice cream!
    I love the ocean, as you do, and miss my visit to the Pacific in July.

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    1. I was planning on firsts and seconds,but the hut was all closed up! Lots of the little huts along the prom at English seaside towns close down round about September/October and don't open again until the spring, some time around Easter. I guess business wouldn't be too great during that time!

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  3. The photos are so bright. They make me feel warm just looking at them. Here's Mine

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  4. It's still pretty warm here. I didn't make it to the beach this year and your photos make me long to go there.

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    1. It's nice here at the moment - blue sky, sun shining...nicest it's been for three months or more! Weather was better the year I took these photos.

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  5. I've never been to Bognor. It looks pretty - pity about the 'Bugger Bogner' quotation!

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    1. I'm fairly sure George V didn't actually say it - I'm sure it's just one of those apocryphal tales.

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  6. What wonderful seaside photos! I especially love the pebbles.

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    1. Thank you Trish. I would cart half the beach home given half a chance, but The Man of The House keeps muttering about the car suspension...

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  7. I think it's lovely to see a previously booming seaside community during its "quiet time."

    Thanks for sharing...and here's MY SATURDAY SNAPSHOT POST

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    1. Laurel-Rain, a few weeks before we went it was probably really busy. Actually, I rather like seaside towns out of season.

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  8. Oh, I love the seashore also! I didn't get a chance to go visit the Atlantic this summer, and I missed it. Perhaps an autumn junket is in order! Thanks for your shots and the inspiration!

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  9. Lovely seaside photos; today is the perfect beach day here --not too hot.

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    1. That's how it should be - nice and warm, with a bit of breeze, but not so hot that you feel as if you're cooking!

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  10. I can hear the ocean waves tidying up their beaches♫♪ Nice blog.

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    1. I like the idea of waves tidying up their beaches... these ones looked like frothy lace, all bunched up in a bundle, with lace ribbons streaming behind...

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  11. I love the waves touching the feet! I like the pebbles on the beach! Great pictures!

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    1. I can walk along beaches for hours, paddling, and grubbing about in rock pools, and collecting pebbles and shells,and sea glass, and bits of wood, and looking at the formation of cliffs.

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  12. Your description gives the photos that much more of a lonely off-season look. Some of my favorite memories of times at the beach have been in winter when no one is there though. :)

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    1. Alyce, thank you for the kind comment. I agree with you about off-season seaside places - years ago I was at college in Eastbourne, and the beach was fabulous during the winter.

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  13. French crepes and ice cream sound divine! It's a shame the hut's shut up....

    And that is a particularly nasty shade of yellow....

    Here's my Snapshot.

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    1. It's a vile yellow isn't it! They must have tried really hard to come up with something as nasty as that - but the windmills were fantastic!

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  14. Lovely photos...some of my best memories are my visits to the seaside.
    My Saturday Snapshot

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  15. Winter spring summer or fall, seaside towns are my favorite places of all.
    The smell of suntan lotion in the summer, the sound of the gulls in the off season. Pure bliss.

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  16. I love the sea, It's incredible and deep and ancient, and the sound and feel of the waves and sand and birds is indeed calming. Thanks for sharing these pictures!

    Here's my Saturday Snapshot. Have a great weekend!

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    1. Strangely, the sea seems to affect most of us the same way.

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  17. no apologies needed, these are wonderful pictures, and the little tidbit of KGV... interesting. ;)

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    1. Thank you Arti. They are a lovely reminder of a a wonderful weekend.

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  18. I always love photos of the ocean or the sea.

    Thanks for sharing!

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    1. I love everything about the sea - except being on it, which is peculiar when you think my Norwegian great-great grandfather had a fishing fleet... !

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  19. I can smell the sea as I read. thanks for the visit.

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    1. That fresh ozone smell is part of what makes it so special I think.

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  20. Oh, such wonderful pictures. And I can't believe the food on offer. A little different from what we usually see - cotton candy, hot dogs, soda, fried everything. How I would love the crepes.

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    1. Me too! Actually we are lucky because there is quite a bit of variety in seaside food sold from huts like this - there are usually places selling candy floss, hot dogs etc, but also shell fish like cockles and winkles. And in Devon they were selling cream teas!

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  21. I think I like your first picture best, with the wave rushing back out. I feel like I can almost hear it. Seems like we're having a final burst of good weather before the autumn comes.

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    1. I like that one - took lots and lots trying to capture the water moving, and was the only one which came anywhere near. The weather is glorious at the moment, but how long it will last I don't know!

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  22. Lovely photos. The wooden hut is so cute, and a stonecastle! Now that's thinking outside of the box.

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    1. Thank Sara. I'd like a garden shed that looked like that - with someone to me crepes and cream!

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  23. It's wonderful to look again at old photos and stir some memories. The froth how it washed over your feet and stony shore that didn't deter the children to build a castle. George V may have missed the beauty because he was ill.

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    1. I was sorting out the photos which moved from broken computer to this one, and there are quite a few I had forgotten about. I may get some of them printed off, and create proper albums, where I could write some of my thought to go with the pictures.

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  24. These photos really capture the mood of the place. I love the lines and repetition in that last one.

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    1. I'm glad you liked them - for me they really do conjure up the plac smell the sea, and hear the gulls and the waves, and feel the stones under my feet.

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  25. Lovely photos - have always wanted to travel there and see the English seaside! :)

    Here's a link to my photo today - http://sharonsgardenofbookreviews.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-day-in-life-of-cat-saturday-snapshot.html

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    1. Thank you Sharon - if you ever get the chance do come and visit - there are so many beautiful seaside towns here.

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  26. I love going to the beach, but I don't think I have ever been to one with no sand. I love the castle made out of stones though, so cute.

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    1. There are plenty of beaches over here with no sand Meaghan... there are pebbly ones, and marshy ones... I love the variety!

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  27. I love that first picture best... the ocean always looks like it's moving and I can almost hear it in that picture. Great perspectives on all of your shots, but that one's my fav. *sigh* LOVE the ocean!!

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    1. Thank you Laura. It's always difficult to tell how sea pictures will turn out, but I was eally pleased with that one.

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