retiredmartin

Day 2 of the Great Channel Islands Completion started with an “adequate” breakfast in the Thalatta Guest House, the sort that reads “Orange Juice OR grapefruit juice OR apple juice” and uses thimble glasses. “OR” is the most disappointing word in the English language.

Nice dining room, mind;

We’d only landed in Jersey the previous afternoon, but Friday was already “moving day“, with a late ferry to Guernsey that evening.

With the four Jersey ticks in the bag, we could have a leisurely day exploring the beaches and and coast.

Yeah, right. First I made a luggage-laden Mrs RM walk the entire length of St Helier, JUST to bring a nostalgic Pauline some holiday snaps.

My Mum and Dad spent their 1961 honeymoon in Jersey, back when air travel was a luxury and the priority was getting away from the Fens to the beach.

The island was busy, but mainly with English gentlefolk and a few tattoed blokes called Bulldod Dave and suave French cyclists, with little focus on the St Helier beach and its unused lido.

It’s all very pleasant, akin to a Littlehampton or Bexley rather than Brighton or Lewes.

There’s some swanky, almost Canary Wharf, flats by the docks, but for the most part it feels like you’d expect if you watched Bergerac. Which I didn’t.

The dry dock lacks a gritty pub these days, but there are scallops, and a shop awaiting a BRAPA visit to replace his pub mascot (top).

Faded, but no worse for that, I thought.

Right, Mrs RM is worn out, let’s jump on the next bus for the coast and see where it takes us.