Seaside

Yesterday, the kids and I enjoyed a gorgeously sunny day on the south coast, wandering up and down the promenade and playing the most elaborate game of crazy golf known to man (18 holes, par 58, my score ten under par). It was the great British Day Out that included fish and chips too: today we'll traipse across the cliffs at Beachy Head before making our way back to London. There won't be many more opportunities for such a jaunt until September. The Blackberry didn't stop buzzing of course but it delivered nothing of alarm or disaster so the point of these 48hrs has been preserved more or less intact. I will probably be at the theatre late this afternoon to see progress and where I am led to believe things have gone largely to plan.

I am writing this on the veranda of the seafront hotel as I wait for the kids to get up for breakfast. The coffee roughly approximates what I am used to, the English Channel is reassuringly grey and the pier off to my right looks as flammable as any British pier should. I can't say that I would be happy to spend a whole summer holiday in such a place but the Victorians created towns like this with a splendour that although faded now, still hangs on. Only a couple of hours from London, I have always wondered what a southern European climate would do to places like this. Culturally speaking, the 28 miles of water between here and France seem much greater but perhaps it is worth celebrating the difference?