7 July 2020

Seaside

We headed to the seaside this morning. The closest coastal resort for Sheffielders is Cleethorpes in North Lincolnshire. It's where The North Sea meets The Humber.

Stew and Frances have hired a brand new Mini so we decided to give Clint a day of rest. It was nice to be sitting in the Mini's front passenger seat observing the world to the left of me. Not a view I am accustomed to as I am usually the driver.

It was not a summery day even though we are in mid-summer. Rain spat at our windscreen as we moved along the motorways - M1 to M18 to M180. We arrived on the seafront an hour and fifteen minutes after leaving home.

Cleethorpes is not the most salubrious of seaside resorts. It has seen better days and under leaden skies it appears more sorrowful that it looks on a sunny day. There were two teams of donkeys on the beach but no riders. We strolled up the promenade and back down.
In a way we were just passing time before entering Papa's fish and chip restaurant upon the town's short pier. We had reserved a table for 1pm and were led to a secluded corner of the establishment by a friendly waitress.

The fish and chip lunch was splendid. Our giant portions of battered codfish hung over the sides of our plates. There were slices of bread and butter, mushy peas and pots of tea too. In addition I ordered a "Hull patty". You don't get them in Sheffield and this one was particularly good . Essentially, it is a mashed potato cake specially seasoned with fresh sage and then battered.

After the fish and chip feast we went into an amusement arcade on the promenade to lose two pence pieces in tipping point machines. Then with the forecasted rain closing in, we decided to head home. Pity it wasn't a blue sky day but we enjoyed our little seaside day trip all the same.

66 comments:

  1. Some of my favorite beach days have been the stormy ones. I love the drama and the wind, the clouds passing overhead, ever-changing. And then the way you can see the rain far off, falling in curtains. It can be beautiful. Just as you showed here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for your reflections and kind words Mary.

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  2. *I travel much to the sea, not knowing what I seek.*
    Loren Eisely, The Unexpected Universe.

    What is it about the seaside; a patter of rain, then a pelt; salt air in the lungs; the lonely pier, as though it's out of season? Even more wonderful in Lincolnshire, where the North Sea (known as the German Ocean in the 19th Century) meets the Humber? And why is the name Humber pure poetry?

    Then battered cod, good bread and butter, a pot of tea; who needs a holiday in the sun? My favourite drink in the world (after clear cold water) a drop of best English bitter. In a corner pub where they still play drafts. Getting dark when you come out, and the tide going out. Thanks buddy.

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    1. The ancient word Humber means, I believe, River. Northumbria - north of the Humber - was another land and remains so to this day. We are not Angles like the true English. We have a different heritage though our battles happened long so - in the mists of time.

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    2. What is it about the seaside, you ask. I tell you what. Windy. Gusts are not your friend. Unless you are out there in the deep calm see with nowt more than a sail condemned to nothing. Still, at least Tom Hanks had a ball for company.

      For the last something odd years I have lived (two different places) literally in stone throw of the coast. And I say stone throw as someone whose father told her that I was shit at throwing (as females are) and showed me how to improve my technique. Forget the stone. I'll measure my movements in minutes. So zero time.

      Forget cod. I have been battered. By wind. The sort of wind when you wish for a railing or something to hold onto lest you be swept off your feet.

      U

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    3. They say there once was a River Humber, but that was before the last Ice Age, the mists of time indeed. In Scotland we were excited to see the completion of the 22 mile bridge across the Estuary, longer than the Golden Gate Bridge of which Tony Bennett sang. Why wasn't there a Matt Monro ballad about this feat of engineering which included the River Hull Tidal Barrier? The rivers flowing into the tidal estuary are familiar enough, Trent, Don, Aire, Ouse and Hull; who sings of the Anchcolme and Freshney? You have written about and photographed the Port of Goole where I have never been, but I also want to ramble along the estuary's coastline. Those mudflats, dunes, reed beds, marshes and sandbars are home to wading birds and wildfowl. And what about Barton-upon Humber? Is the intertidal estuary more than five miles in depth? Makes ye shiver, don't it?

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    4. As your schoolteacher no doubt used to say, "Ye have a vivid imagination young John!"
      And as the other wee laddies whispered in class,"We're going to batter ye at dinnertime Mister Clever Clogs!"
      I wonder if Robbie Burns heard similar.

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    5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9fg8J0Zjq0

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    6. Och now, if Hameld was ever battered, it was only by a wee lassie; but that was in another country, and besides, the quarrelsome quine is now a granny.
      As for the fair Ursula, who aye makes me laugh, I can only quote the greatest poet who ever walked the earth, the Midlands Lad even cannier than the Ploughman Poet from Ayrshire:

      Full fathom five thy father lies;
      Of his bones are coral made;
      Those are pearls that were his eyes:
      Nothing of him that doth fade,
      But doth suffer a sea-change
      Into something rich and strange.

      I saw Max von Sydow play Prospero in The Tempest, renouncing the corrupting power of magic, as the Bard renounced the muse, in this his last play. Max died recently.


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    7. TASKER - Thanks for sharing that song. I haven't heard it in many's the long year.
      JOHN Your Sturgeon calls The Bard - William McShakespeare and says he was born in Motherwell.

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    8. Anne Briggs could sing it to an air in her head; at 15 she could sing a sea shanty like Lowlands Away and make it a love ballad; and she walked away from fame. Phenomenal lady.

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    9. *My Sturgeon* is a wee menace, though I like the woman herself. Scottish Nationalism has spread like the cult of Scientology. Our two best writers are divided about the issue. Jim Kelman, though not a Nationalist in spirit, thinks Independence is the only road left. Alan Massie thinks *together is better*. Blundering Boris is a godsend to the Nationalists. I am of the Willie Ross school (our best Secretary of State) who loathed Nationalism. I'll relocate to Sheffield if Scotland leaves the Union. Open a used bookstore!

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    10. When I was at university in Scotland, the SNP was a bit of a joke - an anachronism. It certainly isn't that today. They have damaged Labour forever.

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    11. Theresa and Boris could have ended zero-contract wage slavery. Nationalists argue that Willie Ross today would be on their side, since Britain has become a slum of in-work poverty. Jimmy Reid ended his days as a Nationalist and there is the very much alive Jim Sillars, a Nationalist heavyweight. I want social justice for the whole of the United Kingdom; and I fear the cost of living would rise steeply with Scottish independence, not to mention the massive legal costs of divorce-separation. Scotland owed England a lot because we had access to British markets and thus jobs: I wonder if they teach that in schools?

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  3. It's good to get out once in a while and do something different.

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  4. The shore is magnetic and magical for so many people. A fish dinner is the icing on the cake. Or maybe it WAS the cake, in this case :)

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    Replies
    1. We didn't have cake though there was a desserts menu. We couldn't manage another thing!

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  5. The last time I was in England to visit my aunt the sea and the days looked like your photos. Auntie Fran was in a nursing home in Bexhill on Sea, right across from the sea with a beautiful view. She hated it. Lord she was a difficult woman.

    Glad you had a lovely time with your family.

    Fish and chips with a hull pattie sounds redundant, chips and deep fried mashed potatoes, although it does sound good.

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    1. Not what you might call healthy eating but once in a while you just have to pig out. Auntie Fran may have been difficult but she was lucky too. What a place to see out your days.

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  6. A trip to the sea in any weather would be wonderful to me. Cloudy or not, you still get that fresh sea air plus it sounds like you had a very good meal! I had to look up what a tipping point machine is and I'm still not sure about it. We have arcades with video games, pinball machines and such and we have casinos with slot machines but I've never seen tipping point machines.

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    Replies
    1. They must be a British kind of thing Bonnie. We even have a TV quiz programme called "Tipping Point"...that's why I have given them that name. You could google the programme - see it on YouTube perhaps.

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  7. That Hull pattie sounds like my kind of food! Fish and chips are a "must" for me at least once during my annual Yorkshire holiday. My sister, who is vegetarian, is always happy to help with the chips.
    I very much like this kind of seaside trip. During my many holidays in Scarborough, I enjoyed the fresh air and the view across the sea in almost all kinds of weather. Only when the wind and rain would become too violent would we retreat to our room at the B&B. Much of the time, though, it was dry - and some days were even warm and sunny enough to spend a couple of hours actually sunbathing on the beach! We were always North Bay people, but went for a stroll along South Bay and visited the arcades to get rid of all our copper change.

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    1. Happy days in Scarborough with Steve. Also a special place for me. I tried twice to get a promotion to a secondary school in Scarborough but it wasn't to be.

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  8. Lovely pictures of the coast. I like a good fish and chips, but can you explain why you would also have bread and butter with it! Is it a " northern" thing?
    I am from Leicester ..maybe it was a thing there too but doubt we ever had chips AND bread!

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    1. Dear oh dear oh dear! How can you make a chip buttie on the side if you don't have bread and butter? Honestly Frances, you do ask some odd questions!

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  9. We must be telepathic. I was only explaining to my daughter yesterday afternoon how when i was a kid my parents and I would spend an hour on holiday at an amusement arcade tipping pennies into a machine like in Tipping Point. There were you doing it yesterday afternoon! It s not at all July weather at the moment. I have been trying to do some outside painting and it has been a nightmare.

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    Replies
    1. Summer! Summer! Where art thou?

      Whenever I visit the seaside I like to have a session on a tipping point machine. So absorbing.

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    2. "Summer! Summer! Where art thou?" Well, dear YP, look no further than irony. Fate is mocking. In lockdown the sun shone.

      U

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    3. Aye lass...the good old days of The Great Lockdown. The sun shone. Crime plummeted, the roads were quiet and beer cost thrupence a bottle. Those were the days.

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  10. I love those moody cloud shots. It looks like those people on the beach are social-distancing very well.

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    1. One of those people was a metal detectorist. I don't know if he found anything.

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  11. You made me think of holidays in Scarborough YP. Watching the Grumbleweeds and visiting Anne Bronte's grave... I miss Victorian English seaside resorts with piers and fish and chips and entertainment.

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    Replies
    1. A visit to Anne Bronte's grave was always part of my Scarborough holidays, too, as was taking refreshments (usually a cup of weak coffee with some excellent home-baked cake or scone) in St. Mary's church.

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    2. We always stayed in the North Bay too. My mum said it was posher and we would walk to the castle and visit the Bronte grave and we spent many an happy hour in Peasholm Park. Happy days.

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    3. As a kid, we didn't need to actually stay in Scarborough. We only lived twenty five miles away. Several of my father's family lived and worked at High Riggs Farm on the high land west of Scarborough. My great grandfather's occupation was "rabbit catcher".

      I think I saw you on the beach one time Northsider. You were building a sandcastle then I stomped on it and ran off. Behind me I heard you crying.

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    4. A crab wouldn't share its ice cream with me. So I called it a shell fish so and so. Did you put on your spiv hat and sell seagulls to tourists YP?

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    5. I used to busk in Bridlington. They thought I was Ralph McTell.

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    6. "The Streets Of Bridlington.."

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    7. So how can you tell me you're lovely
      And say for you that your lips doth shine
      Let me take you by the neck and lead you through the streets of Brid
      I'll show you seagulls that will surely blow your mind

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    8. I love that song ... Well I did !!

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  12. My daughter has a mini convertible. Remind me not to sit in the back seat when the top is down again. I felt as though someone was bashing me around the head with a blow up baseball bat. lol
    I can't picture you at the seaside, the country is where I see you being at your happiest but the fish and chip dinner sounds great.
    As for the beach. We have pebbles and I can't bear walking or sitting on sand.
    Briony
    x

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    Replies
    1. The government should get those pebbles removed from Brighton beach and ship in loads of sand from the beaches of Normandy. They have plenty there. The pebbles could be used to make a massive statue of Matt Hancock who wrapped his arms around our care homes like a modern day Jesus.

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  13. A Hull pattie in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire. That really is multicultural.

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    1. Positively exotic!

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    2. In the modern world, one needs to be broad-minded and open to everything Tasker - even a new spelling of "patty". And thank you for describing me as "postively exotic" CG! A welcome compliment.

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    3. I apologise very much for the wrong spelling of patty. I realised as soon as I'd done it and was mortified. I do of course know the correct spelling of patty and would have done so correctly had I not been influenced by the German form of the word, above.

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    4. über - that's the German form of the word "above".

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  14. We like Cleethorpes. Were the public toilets open?

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    1. Yes they were Jean though I used the toilet in Papa's fish and chip restaurant. Being an F&C connoisseur I would say that the mushy peas were far too salty. Otherwise excellent. Which donkey do you usually ride Jean?

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  15. Yum. Fish and chips by the sea. One thing I do miss in the US. Never found a place that can make a decent plate of fish and chips, mushy peas, etc.. Enjoyed your moody sea photos.

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    1. I am a moody kind of guy - just like the pictures. Fish and chips with mushy peas make me proud to be English. Who cares about Shakespeare or our stately homes? It's the quality of the fish and chips that matters.

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  16. After watching numerous videos of blatant racism over the past few days, your post was a calming balm. More of this and more nice people who don't hate for the sake of hating.

    Lovely pics YP

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    Replies
    1. Here at Yorkshire Pudding we aim to please Linda. There is so much nastiness around: it often feels nice to create inoffensive posts from normality.

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  17. A rainy beach can be very atmospheric! I wonder if the donkeys were happy not to have any riders? The restaurant lunch sounds good. We still haven't tried dining out post-Covid.

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    1. (Not that Covid is over -- I mean post-lockdown.)

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    2. I guess that Dave's health issues make you think twice about eating out. That is very understandable. I suspect that the donkeys were happy without riders on their backs. They were all saying "Hee-haw!"

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  18. Few posts on such a seemingly mundane subject (with very atmospheric photos) generate such interesting comments. Nothing that I can say can add to the interest but it can add to the appreciation. It's so long since I had a fish supper (as they tend to be called in this fair country unless you are having it for breakfast or possibly lunch) that your words made me salivate.

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    Replies
    1. Camerons' Fish and Chip Shop on Point Street in Stornoway is a place you should visit. Get your fish and chip supper home at top speed then stick it in the microwave for one minute. You will experience heaven on earth.

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  19. The excursion sounds like one you've had and enjoyed in the past.

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    Replies
    1. Are you psychic Joanne? Yes I have been to Cleethorpes several times before.

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  20. A chaffeured drive in a new car, dramatic skies and crunchy battered fish WITH bread and butter and tea, all in one day?
    You could do a lot worse!

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    Replies
    1. Life in the fast lane Kylie. Life in the fast lane.

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