retiredmartin

August 2024. Ramsgate.

How lovely to read last night of the BRAPA clan’s outing to Cardiff to see punk legend Billy “Idol” Joel. I reckon Daddy BRAPA is the real punk with his Old Speckled Hen glass.

Simon’s latest post took The Longest Time to read. 8 minutes ? An hour, two if you look for the hidden messages in the pictures.

Anyway, I’m exhausted now, so short posts from me from Ramsgate, a town whose classic Fosters sign at the Royal (“cheap beer, cheap food”),

sits in perfect harmony alongside the graceful stylings of the Alexandra.

We left the World’s Biggest Spoons to wander along the arches under the prom, heading past the marina to the Sailor’s Church.

The art of travel with Mrs RM is not to push her too hard, to take account of steep climbs in calculations of acceptable distances between pub stops, and to give her Instagrammable photo opps.

Ramsgate has a sandy beach, good value family dining and is great for some easy strolls. But it ain’t (yet) Whitby, and I can’t quite see why that warrants such extraordinary hotel prices, even in August.

To show how UK accommodation prices have gone mad (I blame the Southworths), I paused to point out the Royal Temple Yacht Club where I stayed for £35 in 2016.

“Were those women there in 2016 ?” asks Mrs RM.

“What women ?” I ask, in innocence.

“Earthy” pubs apart, Ramsgate seems a family-friendly sort of place, and the cafes and restaurants under the arches are pleasingly independent.

But then a reminder of the town’s grittier past, the home for the apprentice boys on the sailing smacks,

their lives detailed in the Sailors Church next door to the Smack Boys homes.

This blog has some great photos of a church that in its own way is just as impressive as Canterbury, and the donation box is a hole in the wall for your coins rather than a contactless card reader.

and a reminder of a time when ships had proper names like “Acceptable”, “Wishful” and “Feasible”.

Of course, a century ago pubs had proper names too, just as our Ramsgate pub tick does.