"Oh I do like to be beside the seaside..."

A day at Skegness.


That’s the seaside UK style, with donkey rides on the sand, fish and chips in paper and bingo on the sea front (no brass bands a la song.)

Now as to the sea…nothing has changed, it’s so far out you can barely see it at low tide, and it’s not much better at high tide. When you do see it, it is brown. It did not detract from our enjoyment when we were kids wearing our knitted bathing costumes which sagged (seriously)when wet. We used to jump the waves singing ‘Shrimp boats are a-comin’ a-comin’ a-comin...’

seeeing the sea from the big wheel

Did I say ‘waves?’ I never saw them more than a few millimetres high, which of course made it safe for us kids, but of course on our day trip last week I could hardly see them at all until we rode the big wheel. Never mind it was a beautiful sunny day.

STOP 1: the donut kiosk for fresh made donuts, 4 for a pound except that the donut maker gave us 5. (I think he fancied Jose, always handy to have a young personable woman with you on these occasions.)



donut kiosk


STOP 2: coffee, not bad but I’ve been starved of really good coffee in the UK. The Starbucks instant packs have helped, but for over the counter, Neros are the best. They advertise double shots hence the attraction for me.

STOP 3: Bingo; you sit at a machine a bit like a ‘pokie’ sliding a black cover over each number as it is called. The caller sits behind the players instead of in front. He had a problem with his ths so 33 was ‘firty free’ etc. No matter. We each put a pound in the slot and played till it ran out. No need to call Gamblers Anonymous on this tight bunch! Maxine won a prize, a tatty looking hedgehog which seems to have found a permanent home in the back of her car.

STOP 4: Fish and chips at the Clock Tower restaurant where we had to wait a while. Personally I think we might have done better with them in paper sitting on a bench in the warm sun because the fish was over cooked and the chips average. Given that the restaurant advertises that they cook to order, hence the wait, we expected a better meal. 

clock tower Skegness



STOP 5: Baby Boutique; okay not strictly the kind of thing for which one goes on a day trip to Skegness but hey, there’s a new baby girl in the family and I’m drawn to these places, and …they had a sale! (This side trip put paid to our plans to play crazy golf.)

STOP 6: Went on the Big Wheel instead. At last a big wheel where it’s supposed to be, in a fun fair at the seaside, not cluttering up the cities of England where there seems to have been an epidemic since the London Eye went up in 2000.

STOP 7: camel races. No not the real thing that occasionally take place at Canterbury race course in Sydney. These are the kind at seaside funfairs where you roll balls into a slot to move camels along grooves in competition with your fellow rollers. Of course Maxine won again…twice.

STOP 8: the ice cream stall, the soft white kind. I ordered a 99, which has a Cadbury Flake in it. The flakes are smaller now and they cost twice as much.

STOP 9: Authorpe to visit Hedgehog Care, which merits its own blog. See you next time.