A really big birthday

We dined in at the hotel last night and had an excellent meal. Beforehand, Clare found the shower thermostat wasn't working, so she complained. While we were eating a plumber arrived and fixed the problem. We were treated to a complimentary bottle of Chilean Merlot on the house! Our day started with a generous breakfast, and a walk on the beach in the wind, before getting ready for the birthday lunch. Owain arrived, then Kath, Anto and Rhiannon separately, and all checked into their rooms just as Pauline and her offspring arrived and started greeting their guests. Altogether we were three tables of ten - one for her immediate family, another for friends, and yet another for cousins. Dianne and Ian, Guy and Pam, Clare and I, plus our brood.

It was a delightful celebration, a time for reminiscence and catch-up, Pauline gave a little speech and cut the cake, and all partook of an excellent buffet lunch. By tea-time, everyone had departed, so we that remained for a night together at the hotel went out for another walk in the wind up the beach and back. Then, Clare, Kath and Owain went for a swim in the hotel pool, and Anto spent some time in the sauna, I just went to bed to recuperate. It wasn't so much the physical exercise that seemed to drain me, but several hours of socialising, reaching out to people, to an extent that I have been unable to for many months. I'm fine with familiar routine social interaction at church, but none last quite as long as this party, I guess. We all had supper together at eight, and by ten I headed off for bed, leaving the others chatting and drinking.

It was a lovely day, and it was great to see my eldest sister in such good form, sharp and engaging well with others at four score years and ten, despite inevitable physical frailty. Since Geoff died she has been contemplating moving to sheltered accommodation to be near daughter Nicky. Now she has decided to take the house off the market, and stay put until she cannot manage on her own and needs a nursing home. She has helpful friendly neighbours, a taxi service when needed, and Nicky orders for her all she needs on-line and has it delivered. It's the place she's lived longest in her life, and her family, although dispersed, keep in touch. Who needs all that disruption and re-adjustment at her age?

Return to Weston

After a wound clinic visit and early lunch we set off for Weston-super-Mare. I first came here as a toddler for the annual Miners' Fortnight family holiday, over seventy years ago. The beach, with its golden sand ending at low tide in estuarine mud, is everlasting the same, though the promenade has changed in appearance over the past forty years since we used to visit with our small children during our time in St Paul's Bristol.

I drove all the way and was comfortable doing so for the hour and a quarter journey. As I haven't driven for six weeks, not being able to sit for any length of time, yesterday morning I had a trial run, driving Clare to school, a mere twenty minutes behind the wheel. It did my morale good. It's evidence of improvement in my condition, albeit far to slowly for impatient old me.

We checked in to the Beachwood Hotel on the road south out of town, opposite the local golf course, just behind the beach. It's a small family run place catering for two dozen guests, with a swimming pool, the place where my brother in law Geoff's funeral reception party was held four and a half years ago.

Once we'd unpacked, we walked the mile in a strong wind along the beach promenade into the town centre, to hunt for a sleeveless pullover for me, as I forgot to pack the one I needed. Marks and Spencers delivered just what we were looking for. The sales lady told us the store is to close down in a few months time, having served the town's residents and visitors for more than a century. How sad!

Weston's town centre retail area seems to have suffered from incoherent development in post war years. It's a collection of Victorian era buildings and others of little architectural merit dating from the sixties to the turn of the century. In 2006, as part of an effort to enhance the townscape, an unusual artwork was installed, entitled 'Silica'. At ground level, its base houses a bus shelter on one side and a kiosk on the other, above that, a slim conical spire rises a hundred feet into the air, which is meant to light up at night. It's located at a place called Big Lamp Corner, and certainly provides a point for discussion, if only because of its sheer incongruity in this setting.

In July 2008, Weston's Grand Pier pavilion burned down, and a replacement one was commissioned and built, opening just over two years later. This is a more satisfactory effort to enhance the sea front environment, the result of an architectural competition, a stylish contemporary take on a traditional  sea-side pavilion theme. The beach promenade has undergone some structural improvements as well lately, with a succession of conventional looking wrought iron framed shelters, but also a series of substantial open air seating benches sculpted out of dark polished marble.

This time of year there are few holiday visitors. The winter weather makes it windswept and bleak, but there's something I like about the emptiness of the place, the sense of waiting, getting ready for the influx of visitors from Easter onwards. It reminded me of time spent in Spanish costa resorts out of season  My photos are here.