Staycationing in the SS postcode

July 21, 2019 by Ray Morgan

I'm making the most of our seaside town this summer - it's the kind of place where you already feel like you're on holiday isn't it? I have a family of seagulls nesting near my house - often at 4am I am suddenly awoken by their familiar, holidayish squawk. Yes, it's 4am and I don't sleep well at the best of times, but I also do LOVE that sound. 

I rented a beach hut, as I do every year, and spent three blissful days sunbathing, reading, swimming, eating myriad snacks, drinking tea made on the little gas stove. I got more tanned in those three days than I have on entire holidays. It was the ultimate in relaxation, and it was just a short bus ride on the number 1 and a lovely walk down towards the seafront. 

I went for a drink with my friend on Saturday afternoon just gone, down in the Old Town, sitting on the sea wall outside the Billet with a crisp, cold G&T as the incoming tide splashed my feet as they dangled. The sea was impossibly glittery; boats bobbing, pubs heaving, sun shining beautifully in that late afternoon way.

I organised a work social at the Peterboat pub the other week, too - surprisingly for a Leigh-based company, only a handful of us actually live close by, so it was a good opportunity to sit outdoors, drink wine and eat chips and watch the tide come in on another hot sunny evening in the Old Town.

It's the time of year when, on free days, my diary has a hastily scribbled "HT" with the time next to it of that day's high tide. With being so busy and dependent on compatible tides, you have to pounce. I swam a couple of weeks ago (not in Leigh, in Thorpe Bay - still fretting over that Bell Wharf water quality result and I also saw some sad, dumped dead fish on the mud off Bell Wharf a couple of weeks ago and it's played on my mind ever since) and the sea was warm like bathwater. It was one of those late tides, 4pm-ish, where the surface of the water is sparkled like diamonds. The water was crazy-clear - holiday-clear, only a few strands of seaweed right at the shore's edge. I didn't want to get out. No matter where your head's at, swimming in the sea gives you a clarity, a calmness, an absolute pure joy at being able to access this enormous resource that we live by. Free exercise! Occasional jellyfish! Eternal smugness at having swum that day!

So even in between holidays if you're lucky to get them, or instead of them if you're not, there's always a pocket of holiday to be had in your hometown. Even if it's just walking to a seaside pub on a weeknight for a cheeky half, it can make you feel like you're getting away.