Sitting on the concrete promenade
At Thorpe Bay
The sun setting to my right
Casting a glow over the seafront buildings
And the large new ferris wheel
In the distance
The weather is ok
A rarity
Spring seems shy after a brutal winter
This weird place I’ve called home
For the last year
Is fast coming to an end
Everything changes all the time
But with me
Maybe it’s a little too constant
I’m alone
As I usually am out here
In this place
But I look down along the beach
And see an old paddling boat
Filled with sand and shells
The same one my daughter played in
Two weeks before in this spot
And I think if how
I’ll probably never bring her out here again
Why am I nostalgic?
I don’t know
It’s funny how us humans can make anything home
When I first came here I sort of hated this place
It was the middle of summer
Lobster people crawled out of the woodwork
Traffic mess
The constant smell of ice cream and fish and chips
Screams from the amusement park rides
Seemed to carry for miles
An image sticks in my head
A few hundred yards from where I sit now
The height of summer
A rugged looking old man stood on the concrete promenade
And played some equally rugged notes
From a saxophone
While a woman sat on the edge
Legs wide open
Revealing whatever you wanted to see
And swayed, beer in hand, to the music
In the background an old yacht had fallen on its side
And lay prone in the water
That’s Southend for you
There’s charm, but you have to be creative about it
There was always this sense
Right from the beginning
That’s I’m not at home in this town
Or city
Whatever
And I never was
But familiarity has its charm
Certainly to me
But that’s my problem
I hate goodbyes
And here I am
Another goodbye to another place
This one a solitary journey
That precious few saw precious little of
I look down the seafront
I think I can almost make out the shape
Of the Royal Hotel
I can afford to take a few minutes more here
No one’s waiting for me
And here I am
Taking it slow
As it all rushes by
Notes from the Narrow Lanes 