I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside(Reginald Dixon) - A Summers Day in Blackpool Feeling Like A Local Holidaymaker - 16th August 2016

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We survived the night on what must be the hardest bed in the world.We are sure even prisoners in jail get a softer bed than what we have! Being tired certainly helps and if we are going to have repeat this tonight then we had better take a long hike today to make ourselves tired tonight.

The weather today is perfect, mid 20’s by mid morning and it looks like the English summer has arrived for us. We will make the most of it as long as it lasts.

We plan to wander the Blackpool promenade and take in how the English spend their day at the beach. And then as we need some more grocery supplies we will walk to a supermarket to get what we need.

First though its breakfast and a dose of Jeremy Kyle on ITV, our favourite pastime if we rise late enough to watch it with breakfast. We do have this programme on at home but it’s on in the middle of the day when we are work.

It’s hard to decide whether it is all acting or not as most of the people he has on are over the top when it comes to getting a result to their problem. Often it’s all about whether ‘the child is his’ or perhaps about one of a couple cheating on the other.

There is always a message behind each story and generally Jeremy Kyle, who has been doing this show for 10 years now, tries to get the moral of the story across. The participants tend to come from the lower socio-economic groups and although it is never mentioned, as far as we can recall, they seem to be in it for money which we guess they get for appearing and airing their dirty washing on National TV.A bit of trash TV!

We identified a Morrison’s supermarket about 4km away and we have two routes to take which will give us different views there and back.

We started out on the promenade walking south taking in the large numbers of family groups enjoying the sun on the steps leading down to the narrow beach of sand that was available to sit on at high tide. Most people seemed to be happy setting themselves up on the steps that ran up from the sand to the promenade and many of them looked like they had settled in for the day.

It would be interesting to know which city or part of Britain the majority of people who holiday in Blackpool come from as there were all races of people down at the seaside. In some places though it was hard to spot any white Europeans.

They have static lifesaving posts along the promenade although no actual flagged areas, not that there were many people actually in the water and few were no more than 10 to 20 metres off shore. There was also a life saver on a four wheel bike who was motoring back and forth along the promenade presumably keeping a watch between the life saving posts.

Walking further south we came to the adventure and Fun Park where there are three rollercoaster’s of varying degrees of scariness including one where the riders got to hang upside down for a few seconds as their car thundered around the track.

There were lots of screams and fun being had but we both decided that we were getting a bit past it to try one out for ourselves and our sedate walk along the promenade was more appropriate for us.

The crowds had thinned out now we were further on than the main beach and we needed to start to focus on where the supermarket actually was. We were sure it wouldn’t be on the road that ran parallel to the beach as that is given over to hotels, guest houses, cafes and places on entertainment.

At the far end of the beach there is some renewal of buildings happening but we can’t say that what is going up is all that stylish. The English seem to value the beachside opportunities less than we do in New Zealand where there would be architect designed homes built rather than a row of the same type of construction. Perhaps this why many English people move to New Zealand (aside from the weather) to get some choices out of the type of housing they live in.

As we walked away from the beach the road forked and we had to get the mobile phone out to get an idea of exactly where we were in relation to the supermarket we were walking to.

We found it on the map and took the right fork in the road and eventually we made although we estimated that we had walked about 5km instead of the 4km we thought it would be. So by the time we get back to our ‘cosy apartment’ we will probably have at least a 10km walk under our belts.

Morrison’s is the pick of our supermarkets as the ones we have been to have always been well laid out, tidy and smell nice (important when buying food!)and the quality of their good better than their competitors even if sometimes a little more expensive.

We figured out we were more in Lytham St Anne’s more than Blackpool.

We took a different route home through the along the main suburban street that ran all the way to Blackpool noting the better quality of housing in St Anne’s compared to Blackpool even if the houses all looked the same.

Our track took us back to the road we had driven into Blackpool yesterday and before we knew it we were back at the ‘cosy apartment’.

We had been out for over 3 hours and were feeling exhausted and were overdue for something to eat for a late lunch. It hadn’t been very warm but a nice even temperature in the mid 20’s and we hadn’t taken any water with us which had probably drained our energy too.

It was a quiet afternoon with some reading and a bit of TV before dinner time came around.

We had one more task and that was to buy some Blackpool Rock, a favourite candy stick with holidaymakers that comes in all colours and flavours, some you wouldn’t really want to try when it is supposed to be a candy you are eating. As well as the sticks there are various shapes and forms which will remain nameless!

As we left the apartment building there was a woman trying to get her car down the same alleyway Gretchen had taken the Skoda yesterday. She was struggling and the owner of the next door building kept on telling her that she would make it OK but she didn’t believe him. The alleyway was so narrow that the only sure way is to get your car absolutely front on to the access way and edge slowly into the confined space between the two buildings and keep the steering wheel straight! She gave it away and went looking for parking elsewhere.

The twilight was fading and the authorities were trialling the Illuminations again so we got a double whammy at them even if they were turned off a bit earlier than last night.

The days are counting down fast towards the end of the BBA V3 and tomorrow we head for 3 nights in West Wales and hopefully some more hiking.

PS:enjoy what is probably the most famous song that originated about Blackpool.On Youtube as usual.

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