Southend; proper name: Souf-end

Southend on Sea is the more popular, more well-known sister to my own tiny Leigh-on-Sea. She is no London, to be sure; she isn't even a Birmingham. But as a child, she was the exciting city just around the corner; one with a theme park (however ramshackle) and a pier (however windswept). So on Boxing Day, we decided to take our post-dinner stroll there, only a short car-ride away.


And Southend, too, has changed. The waterfront, especially, looks different; it is cleaner, sleeker, and of course, a much nicer place for money to exchange hands. It doesn't really bother me, I suppose. Just past this spaceshippy pier front entrance, there are the same familiar, grungy streets full of shoddy arcades, fluorescent chip shops, and poorly carpeted trinket shops.

How I have missed ye, Adventure Island!

Farewell, Southend. I hope I'll see you again sometime; I feel that our visit was incomplete. We were foiled in our attempts to walk along your pier, which turned out to be closed at dusk. We could only stare nostalgically at the Adventure Island sign. Most of the shops on High Street were already closed. Things in England don't stay open past the setting of the sun, which, here, usually comes at around 4 in the afternoon.

But I already have you preserved in my mind, perfectly- your freshly fried doughnuts at the end of the pier, dusted in sugar; the open square above the Odeon cinema where we could chase pigeons; and your beautifully tacky, colorful theme park where we would be set free for an afternoon, until dusk fell and everything would close, exactly on time.