The best-laid plans of mice and men – and me. This weekend was meant to be the start of an epic year of travel, starting on Saturday with … er … Cardiff where I would tour and then write about it. But trains, or rather the lack of them, put paid to that. Instead, a day later, the 2024 year of travel began in Clevedon, Somerset.
According to my Bradshaws, Clevedon is a “unique, coastal Victorian town in North Somerset”. That’s unique in the sense that there’s only one Clevedon in North Somerset. I have quite a lot of family history here, but today was all about dusting off the Christmas cobwebs and getting some air into my asthma plagued lungs.
For once, it wasn’t chucking it down with rain as we drove round the town at glacial speed trying to find somewhere to park. If only the other people who had driven here today had done the environmentally friendly thing and taken the bus. Selfish bastards. No wonder the country is going to the dogs. Anyway, we soon found somewhere to park which was a mere hike from the seafront.
I do like the seafront at Clevedon which retains its charm despite the ludicrous car parking arrangements which are, as we experts call them, fucking useless. There is a short cycle path for the literally no cyclists who went past as we gazed across the inviting brown water just ahead of us.
To my utter amazement, there was some wild swimming, or swimming as it’s otherwise known. Given the air temperature was all of 4c, I was a tad surprised. And those swimmers, wearing nothing more than basic swimwear, seemed to be quite happy to get out there in the sea. I wouldn’t join them for a variety of reasons. One being that I do not like the idea of swimming in ice cold water and, as happened to an unnamed nutcase I know, I would be fearful of a lump of human excrement floating past my nose. Today, after a lengthy period of heavy rain, I would certainly be very concerned about sewage discharges into the channel, but the inviting prospect of catching Weil’s disease from the piss of local rats didn’t deter the locals. Quite why people wouldn’t prefer to use the local municipal baths is beyond me.
The sea air made me desperate for a cup of tea. With local café Scarlets being packed to the brim with many customers sitting outside, we made our way along Clevedon’s lovely old pier, which was opened back in 1869. Apart from a small but perfectly formed gift shop and museum, a small restaurant and a tiny café perched high near the end of the pier, there’s not much else to it. Yet it’s all the better for it.
Today, you could see right across the Bristol Channel to whichever bits of South Wales you can see and to the north the Prince of Wales bridge, which is the name no one calls the Second Severn Crossing. Being a posh bloke, I plumped for Earl Grey tea and some ginger biscuits. Unfortunately, I soon needed a bathroom visit and discovered to my horror that the only bog was situated near the pier entrance. By the time I returned, my tea was cold, but these are the dubious perks of old age.
I was surprised at just how busy it was. Granted, most people are merely shuffling penguin-like along the front and there are not exactly a whole lot of winter activities to enjoy but I rather like places with nothing to do. I like the lack of noise and actually, and of the changes made to the front the one-way traffic system works. It’s not a resort, like ugly sister Weston Super Mare, just a nice little town by the sea, like everywhere else rather too full of charity shops and barber shops.
I will have to explore my roots in Clevedon one fine day or better still ask someone else to explore them for me. For now, it’s somewhere nice to walk around and get some fresh air.
Where will my travels take me next? Yate? I haven’t been up north in ages. Well, not for about a week, anyway.
