A Brighton-Sunny Day

The prototypically English seaside town has very specific charms, and any seaside town worth its sea-salt has a pier. Brighton's is possibly the most famed of all- although the era of the pier is over, people still flock to it, even in February on one of the coldest days I can remember. 

Nowadays, Brighton is more known for its lively, youth-oriented scene than for Victorian lovebirds strolling down a windswept jetty. We heard rumors that there was a Banksy piece somewhere downtown, but we never found it. There was, however,  a wealth of other interesting graffiti. 




The Royal Pavilion-which we didn't actually visit. I vaguely remember it from my childhood as being opulent, lush, and festooned in rich carpets. I wish I could have gone again, but time was running short, as tends to happen when none of us are willing to get out of bed before nine am. at the earliest. 

It was just as I remembered it-cold, thrilling, nostalgic. To give you an idea of the weather, as we returned to Canterbury that night, it started snowing, and didn't stop for two days. But I also had a distinct memory of hot sugared doughnuts at the end of the pier, a warming thought which sustained me and my companions while the wind whistled.

There used to be another pier here-as a matter of fact, there used to be a couple more piers here. Each one has met with disaster, which is the fate of all spindly wooden structures that try to defeat the ocean at the same time they attempt to entertain hundreds of eager flaneurs at a time. This particular one above met with multiple disaster. First, a storm shattered it, then, after a long period of neglect, fire decimated its already weak remnants. It was quickly becoming dusk as we walked along the beach, and this husk of a pier almost blended in with the greying sky. We speculated as to its likely haunted nature.

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If only the teller had been there! Even if I don't believe in the validity of such practices, what a setting to disbelieve them in...

Isn't it lovely, all lit up and lively? 

This sculpture, jutting out into the beach, looks very much like a doughnut. But in fact, it depicts the globe, curling into a gaping spheroid, the continents being sucked into the hole in the centre. The beach itself was rocky and dark, with only the occasional dog and owner crunching along the shoreline.

And in what seems to me to be a stunningly poetic way to end this post, here are real, non-sculpture doughnuts, cuddling together for warmth at the bottom of a crackling paper bag. Yes, we found the so-craved-for fresh doughnuts, at the very end of our journey, and they were everything we could have wished for. Warm, yeasty, fragrant, and sweet, with a crunch of sugar, they represent the best that English piers have to offer. They are familiar, sometimes to the point of staidness. They are comforting, and offer no challenge, either to the taste-buds or to the intellect. They are fun, cheap, and perhaps not very good for you. But a doughnut is hot, while the English seaside pier is very cold, most of the time....I think I'm losing the metaphor.I suppose what I'm trying to say is that Brighton is worth the calories. (Punsters, I apologize.)