Big fat ice cream time.

After our delivery trip, upwind just about all the way…….you can guess exactly what happened next yes ?….the wind went into the east and stayed there for at least a week !

Almost as soon as we got home we decided to have an actual holiday by the seaside with absolutely no boats involved whatsoever…..well maybe one or two. This is of course Weymouth where we had been just the week before waiting to get around Portland Bill. While we were there the harbour was pretty full of sailing boats i think because the tides were right for boats mainly going west. The problem with the Bill and Lyme bay is well known in that the ideal conditions for getting around Portland and going west are neap tides and a tidal slot very early in daylight. We had exactly that and just about no sign of a tidal race at all. Today (as i write) when we drove down there the tide was sluicing down the east side and a brisk north-easterly was livening things up nicely.

I would guess 2 metre standing waves just a couple of hundred yards out.

Bleak and dry at the Bill.

By the time of our shoreside stay the harbour had mostly cleared out but the town and beach was in full summer seaside mode.

Excellent fish,n,chips on the harbourside.

Quieter in the evening.

Aside from 2 sailing delivery trips i haven’t been to Weymouth since we came here on family holidays and that must have been waaay back in the 60’s maybe. It seems to be exactly the way i remember it with a great beach, chippy’s and ice-cream stands by the dozen and just about every beach front house a B&B. Although i remember the harbour well and definitely remember that there were lots of fishing boats here i don’t remember noticing sailing boats at all. I guess the balance is now completely reversed with just a small fishing fleet and on a busy day loads of yachts rafted alongside.

Lovely brick terrace…all B&B’S and all full up.

There are a couple of things that made me smile at being back in the town, one was when i walked past the ‘head’ shop and saw a Hawkwind concert flyer in the window…..they formed the band round about 1969 which is about when we first came here and i wouldn’t be surprised if they played here back then, Dave Brock must be getting on a bit now. Hawkwind were i think the first band i ever saw live, i think that the line-up i saw included Lemmy Kilminster who died recently…in fact we were talking about old rock-n-rollers at work recently and commented that all the members of Motorhead have now died.

One funny little thing i do remember is that when we did come here back then there was some trouble between scooter-riding mods and their opposite numbers, rockers, on old British Triumphs, BSA’s, Nortons and the like . Nowadays even they seem to get along with a goodly collection of bike-chops, scooter-chops, bikers ….even a patch wearing MC turning up and all chilled out. What is different is the highly noticeable degree of morbid obesity here , i don’t think i’ve ever seen that many morbidly obese people waddling around from ice-cream to chip-shop and back. What hasn’t changed a bit are the aggressive seagulls swooping down on any scrap of unattended food.