The issue is this: I spent the first 20 years of my life a two-hour drive to the sea, and then the first 12 years of working as a clergyhuman in the Midlands, including 8 in Coventry, which is nearly as far from the sea as you can get in the UK. As a child, I saw the sea maybe twice a year - once during our main summer holidays (usually in the West Country) and probably another short break/day trip to the East coast. The first glimpse of the sea was always an exciting moment.
So there is something hard-wired in my system that says that having the view at the top of this blog a few hundred yards from where I live is all wrong. Not wrong in the sense that I don't like it or don't want it; more that I always feel a bit surprised and excited that the seaside is there. If you have lost that feeling (or never had it) I can only prescribe living in Meriden for 10 years and then coming back!
I moved to the Midlands when I was 5, having been born near Plymouth. When we went back to visit once or twice a year, my Dad always insisted we go to the sea as one of the first things we did.
ReplyDeleteI was privileged to live in Liverpool for 16 years, with the sea less than a mile from our house. Now I've been back in the Midlands for over 10 years, I really miss it.
Glad you are enjoying it, though.
I spent 18 years living just down the road from Meriden, in Balsall Common... just as well I moved to Plymouth for a few years. I miss it, and I miss Lancaster too, especially for that closeness to the waves! And now I'm back in the land-locked Middle Lands....
ReplyDeleteConversely, I lived the first 18 years of my life a 5 minute walk from the sea and very, very rarely actually went to the beach. Only now when I visit the parentals do I appreciate the beach, and then mostly as a convenient place to take a walk. Perhaps I take it rather too much for granted!
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