THE DUSKY ROMANCE OF OLD WEYMOUTH

My arms are on fire and my skin’s turned red. I’m like a peeled onion.

It was really windy on the beach today. The waves kicked up into white horses and the seagulls hovered like kites with no strings. Flags fluttered and flapped and windbreaks were bending, not to mention chairs blowing over into the dry sand as it whipped across the beach. It was hot too, at least it was when the wind died down.

I sat reading while the Intrepids flew their pocket kites. I can’t fly kites for vertiginous reasons so I watched the shadows across the yellow sand.

There’s always much to see on the beach: toddlers loving the waves and screaming, parents making sandcastles, old men with enormous bellies; young men with exactly the opposite and shorts they look like they’re still growing into. Teenage dynamics, keepie-uppie, girls face down on sun mats, lads wrestling with a pop up tent, young fathers with tiny tots on their shoulders, young mums doing their very best Jacqui Onassis, with sunglasses and flowing flower print, and of course new couples with eyes and hands only for each other. All the world’s a stage, said Shakespeare once, hopefully proving that ‘people watching’ is a keen cultural pursuit.

My skin feels like all the heat is locked inside it and it’s slowly radiating outwards. I’m like a raw hot water bottle, and unfortunately on such a balmy night, the one night that I definitely wouldn’t need one of those.

I went for a walk after dinner, all the way along to the rocks. It was cooler, and the crashing waves gave me chance to think about a few things. My skin still tingled beneath my jumper.

At the other end of the beach, beyond the clock, there’s a definite sense of older Weymouth. Rows and rows of old-fashioned looking chalets line the esplanade, grand but paint peeling, with rusty padlocks bolting each one shut and forgotten. The old Pier Bandstand juts out over the shingles but no pier emerges from it. And there, at the Green Hill end, the lamp posts are iron and ornate, with Victorian style orbs softly illuminating the curved lattices of the metal work.

I rather liked the dusky romance of all of that.

Behind the esplanade, old seafront houses and hotels rise into long lines of bay windows and balconies. I enjoyed walking past some of the B&Bs where you can peer in and see the tables with upturned tea cups ready for the morning. There’s something quaint about all of that.

Before long I was back on this side of the clock with the Royal Hotel, the funfair and the sand-blasted zebra crossing that took me back to our flat. I sneezed as I rounded the corner into the High Street. Belle’s Bakery was closed, much like everything else. I wrapped my sore arms a little deeper into my jumper, felt the wind tickle my sun-stretched face, and called it a day.