Brixham to Babbacombe

Che drove me down to Brixham and there was a slight morning after feel to the town. However, the stalls and music stages and temporary bars were being erected.

It was wonderful to walk down the quay and to continue round the coast, clocking the remains of last night’s pirates’ parties. Anagram city Arizona.

Looking back, Brixham looked great in the sun. The pirates were in there somewhere! Resting before today’s shenanigans.

Up the English Riviera from Brixham the path meanders into little coves and it is pleasant.

I like the wild seasides and the places that have a whiff of Edwardian Britain about them.

This is lovely. The grey blue sea slightly rippling. The rocks jutting bottom left. The stunning blue of the sky. A thin strand backed by beach huts perfectly centred in the photo. The sandstone soil with green either side. I love this photo.

Rounding the bay the hoot of a steam train took me back to my childhood. Sometimes the trains hooted like this coming past our house in Heeley, just over the train tracks from the end of Bramall Lane. The steam was filled with soot. There were no cars, or the occasional car. Along Heeley Bottom the trams trundled down their tracks. Daft kids put halfpennies on the rails and the next tram bent them at right angles. But there wasn’t a shop that wouldn’t accept them. I look back to that early phase of my childhood with emotion and sadness, but they were happy and very simple times. Sad at the good things we’ve lost from those days in the fifties. Emphysema, smog, polio, rubble, pipe smoking, caning schoolchildren and outside toilets.

The coast was nice but beyond this Paignton and Torquay weren’t my cup of tea. Give me Brixham on Pirate Day any time.

Che picked me up at Babbacombe, just north of Torquay, and took me back to the campsite after we picked up a gorgeous and spicy Chinese takeaway. Our expenditure is jointly funded onto a card that buys everything related to the two of us. Petrol, campsites, provisions etc etc etc. If we’re flush on it then we can afford a Chinese. We’re flush.

Night night etc etc etc.