SHOREHAM BY SEA
I only had time for the quickest browse around this my old town, just a few shops to dash into and a couple of coffee slammers to rev the heart. Fall off the London Victoria train (or park at the CO-OP) and the Shoreham Art Gallery is one of the first shops you are likely to see, partly due to its startling exterior of vivid …tourquise?. And why not? Nothing says eccentric and creative seaside town more than a brightly coloured art gallery with loitering seagulls and the tempting aroma of fish and chips coming from the other side of the railway crossing.
It may be that the Art Gallery used to be the fish mongers of old. After school it was a twix. Or in sometimes in summer a bag of shell of prawns, and a paddle in the sea. I don’t remember it being so pretty, not like this little art gallery now.
So dive in for locally made art, sculpture and little bits of jewellery. Last minute present? – tick.
Haven’t had breakfast? No problem, there are temptations everywhere. The emporium does a fine breakfast if you can break away from browsing old records, and vintage keep sakes. For a short time I was a white-van-man. BB and I had to decorate a couple of houses from top to toe. We always started our days here, a frantic drive around the M25, down the M23 and then a slap up breakfast amongst the mums with pushchairs, the writers and the arty types. Then it was days of sloshing paint on walls, slosh, slosh, bloody slosh.
But I’m a sucker for Ginger and Dobbs. It’s in the heart of the town, part coffee shop, part delicatessen with locally made foods, part grocers. It’s fabulous to sit opposite the low flint wall of the ancient church watching the world go by or stay inside scrutinising the shelves, wincing at the cost of honey (£8.50!!).
So many distractions; ancient church built by those rascally French invaders with their double barrelled posh names, antiques, shops to browse. No need to dodge cars just the odd sit-up-and-beg bicycle slowly pedaling past dinging its bell with charming ferocity
I don’t know why these somewhat random over large Chinese fortune cookies are in various shop windows. But I definitely LOVE them. I WANT THEM. I want the last one. Who wrote it? I want those words to belong to me!
I love old names, old doors too. Imagine living in Star Lane or Myrtle Cottage or the newly repainted house from when Captain Henry Roberts went off to explore the Seven seas with Captain Cook. There is so much romance, skullduggery, smuggling and adventure in these smalls lanes.
And I realise there is so much I have not told nor shown. How the town was cut in two during a big storm in the Middle Ages, the old street terminating in the river, the restaurants, the tea shops, the coffee shops, the potteries the art shops and galleries. So this may have to be part one.
It’s lovely though. I’d forgotten how lovely it is. This little jewel that sits in the cleavage between Brighton and Worthing.
