IT WAS THE NAZE, WITH GOD-GIVEN WHATEVER

 We went to the Essex seaside, specifically Walton-on-the-Naze.  

 

I like the seaside, though I only like a doing a certain number of the things people are supposed to do at the seaside.  Eating fish and chips is OK, swimming’s OK too though I don’t do it very often and in Walton neither do many others – I saw exactly two people in the water.  And I absolutely hate sitting on the sand getting a suntan.  

 

Mostly I just like to walk around looking at things and people.  The fact that many seaside towns have a main street named the Promenade suggests that walking is what most people do there.  The road along Walton’s seafront is named the Parade, though it becomes Southcliff Promenade at the southern end, and Prince’s Esplanade at the other.  Good names.

 

Walton is full of good stuff, such as this seat carved from the trunk of a dead tree, for those who aren’t too wide in the hip.

 

This I think is one of the most substantial public toilets I’ve ever seen:

 

And then there was this abandoned ice cream:

 

My immediate thought was that it was the symbol of a kind of tragedy – somebody, possibly a child, dropped their ice cream and that ruined their day.  But maybe the owner of the ice cream wasn’t really enjoying it and therefore tossed it aside to make a still life, something to do with transience and vanitas.  

 

But finally what made it all worthwhile was this shop with its gorgeously punctuated sign.  No, I have no idea.

I'd been to Walton just once before, not so very long ago, but I really didn't remember it 

very well.  On the other hand, Mel, one of our group, had spent many a childhood holiday 

there.  He was able to remember the beach as the place he'd played, that block of flats on 

the Parade had been converted from the hotel his family had stayed in.  For all I know he 

might even have dropped the occasional ice cream cone.  Proustian moments are

everywhere; even in Walton.