onionbagblog

The camera never lies, Comrades - but of course I didn’t cycle all the way from Wivenhoe to Walton-on-the-Naze. Especially not on a DIY bodge job of a fixed wheel conversion to a Moulton Mini.

But these truly are the Golden Days of the summer.

Sort of.

The Essex Riviera fag end heat wave is as resplendent as it is unexpected. Put another winter fuel log on the BBQ, Luv.

An 80 plus degrees day in mid-June causes complications, irritations and arguments. You’ve got Twenty20 cricket coming to its peak, Glasto and constant garden watering to occupy any spare time. A heat wave is a headache.

Fast forward to the first day of October - THE FIRST DAY OF OCTOBER! - and you know that by Wednesday week and the radiators will be back on. The high point of a Saturday afternoon will be a trip to the Co-op to stock up on Oxo cubes.

Which is why pretty much all of North Essex seemed to descend upon Clacton, Frinton or Walton at the weekend. Celebrate these Golden Days whilst we still can. They *may* mean a monumental cock up to the overall climate, but I’m not counting, Comrades.

Factor five and a double flake please, my man.

Once Walton bound, I cycled along the promenade, up towards the Naze and then took up my place on what was left of the beach. Time and tide wait for no October heat wave.

I switched to my lido soundtrack from fifteen summers past. Five years off a score, procrastinating April to September away at Brockwell Lido has been at the epicenter of my South London summers.

Nope - Brockwell Lido WAS the epicenter of my world, for almost a third of my life. Holidays didn’t happen for fifteen years. Daily lido dips in the South London sun were my six-month vacation every year.

It is the scene where I have laughed, reflected and even made some life changing decisions. Moving to Wivenhoe was the last of these epochal events, taken under the brilliant blue skies of Lake Brockwell.

And so here I was, in Walton-on-the-Naze, in October - OCTOBER! - doing the exact same thing some seventy miles from South London: sitting in the sun, listening to John Marytn, Isley Brothers and even some Style Council thrown in. It felt no different to what I use to do back at Lake Brockwell.

The sound of kids laughing came through the more acoustic moments of John Martyn; random bikinis caught my eye. I was awoken by the sound of my own snoring.

And then just as the autumnal tidal pattern started to turn, so did my Moulton Mini, all the way back to Wivenhoe - well, via Frinton, Weely, Thorpe-Le-Soken etc.

Golden Days, I tell you. Golden Days.

Same again on Sunday.

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