Old Viking Bay

I love this old photo we found of Viking Bay in Broadstairs, my favorite English coastal town. Straight ahead is the Albion Hotel, where Dickens once wrote—and where Jesse and Lew imbibed while we ambled up to Bleak House, which we assume is the narrow building all the way to the right on the cliffside. It was obviously expanded later as it is much grander now.

Not so Bleak House

Here is a fabulous view of our favorite seaside town, Broadstairs—with Charles Dickens' Bleak House in the background as a literary bonus. Sadly we did not have time to go inside when we visited, but we understand it's now available for rental. Wouldn't that be the perfect spot for a Prodigal reunion? Or the perfect setting for a murder mystery...

Tea on the beach

Then, with the sun beating down on us, Lew suggested tea. Frances was innurred to the fact that my family and I drank hot tea in the height of summer, but she was amazed to find this strange predeliction actively encouraged right on the beach.
“The beach tray!” I said, with jokey effusiveness. “It’s part of the English seaside tradition! Like donkey rides, Punch and Judy, and saucy postcards, the beach tea tray is a standard seaside accoutrement.”
”You’re so weird,” said Frances evenly, shaking her head, trying not to give my blatherings any encouragement. I shrugged and, undaunted. set off with Lew to buy a pot of tea with extra hot water, a jug of milk, dishes of sugar, and proper cups and saucers and spoons, all of which we majestically carted back across the sand to our little bit of beach and half-constructed castle.

At the beach

“Did you bring Kate’s bathing costume?”
“A bathing costume?” Frances looked at me as if I were an exhibit in a museum.
“Alright, alright, but did you?”
“No,” said Frances firmly. Then she smiled. “But I did bring her swimsuit.”
In addition to my arcane bathing terminology, Frances found my family’s English beach etiquette mildly amusing. She watched as we staked out a piece of beach with deckchairs. Within short order, Mum had taken off her hat and shoes and cardigan, and begun studying racing form. Meanwhile Lew had unbuttoned his shirt, taken off his shoes and socks, and rolled up his suit trousers to his knees. I was still ripping up my jeans, trying to create shorts, as Kate rushed towards the water’s edge.

Finally back in Broadstairs

“Look, that’s where Dickens stayed,” I enthused. “And that’s where he wrote The Pickwick Papers! There! D’you see? There’s a blue plaque.”
No one cared.
At the end of the High Street, the sea suddenly appeared, then disappeared from view. We turned onto Albion Street, gaily painted with double yellow lines and decorated with sporadic meters and lots of no-parking signs.
“There’s nowhere to park! Brilliant, bloody brilliant!”
Then, just past the harbor pub, The Tartar Frigate, I was relieved to find a waterfront car park tucked into the lea of a cliff. I stopped the car, got out, and stretched my legs. The harbor, originally built by Henry the Eighth, jutted out like a giant, slightly curved anvil, protecting its brightly colored, bobbing fishing fleet, a few waves away from a crescent beach, the pristine footprint of Vikings Bay.
“What do you think, not bad, eh? At the end of the harbor, we can even buy some cockles and winkles for tea!” I said, happy again.

A yank back to Broadstairs, part 2

But it’s the rocks and the sand and the sea I adore the most. Perhaps I’m drawn to the edges of England because I can’t wait to get away from it all, and that’s why I love to plunge into the very salty, very cold, very uninviting grey green sea with lemming-like fervor. Maybe I like swimming away from the coast to gaze upon the undulating shoreline that crumbles gracefully, in part, like a giant piece of Wensleydale cheese. if only to better understand where I have come from and why I always swim back to it.

A yank back to Broadstairs, part 1

I was secretly longing to get back to the sea. I find myself drawn to the coast, and I need a connection with the ocean that pounds and tries to batter Albion into submission. I long to swim in the water or, if the weather turns inclement, to at least paddle my feet in the briny foam. For some reason I’m drawn to English seaside places, specifically Broadstairs, with its huddle of Victorian abodes clustered around the cliff top. I fondly imagine bewhiskered gents and corsetted ladies from a century ago, promenading along the front, taking in deep breaths, listening to brass bands in Cliffside Gardens, trying to escape the constraints and the conventions of their day, if only with an occasional burp or fart swallowed up in the sound of a brass cymbal or a crashing wave. I love the town’s rocky terrain, the tiny harbor, the gaudy seaside swag, its weather-beaten elegance and quiet claims to the past that always seem so warm and inviting, whatever the season.