It happens, from time to time, that I develop an insatiable urge to be by the sea. I've been itching to get to the coast, and despite the gloomy weather, set out with some urgency to Brigton, the nearest coastal town from London. I beelined from the train station, past the shops just opening their doors for the days, through the lanes and across the green of the Royal Pavilion toward the shoreline. I was nearly at a trot once the horizing was in view, with a pace that would suggest I was racing the tide and the sea would soon dry up and dissappear, like the shoreline at Alma in New Brunswick. I'd be left trodding the sludgy sea bottom, my desparate attempt at watching the waves roll in futile.
It wasn't all that dramatic. In the end I made it to the coast, sat for a good hour or so shielding the drizzle with my umbrella until my bottom was numb from the pebbles underneath and I felt sufficiently despondent thanks to the unforgiving critique by Jeremy Paxman of his own culture for their inadequacies and idiosyncrasies which are partly explained by the fact The English are an island people and have developed a nation surrounded by a moat.
It was absolutely perfect and just the sort of afternoon I was hoping for.
Ahhh....
