cold

Hornsea – the Bahamas of England’s east coast.

Some folk say Hornsea can be gloomy, dank and bitterly cold. They’re fools.

Growing up as a child, I used to look out of my window and watch the sun come out in all its radiant rosy-fingered beauty.

What fascinated me was that it always came out at a great distance. Over Hornsea, the grey skies were permanently locked and bolted.

When I asked my parents what this was all about, they told me to be grateful we had enough coal to survive the winter. Happy memories.

Today, thanks to global warming, Hornsea is enjoying a kind of rennaissance, particularly with the establishment of a high-profile “boot-camp” for the British Antarctic Survey, and a residential building-boom resulting from the ground thawing enough to be diggable for the first time since the last Ice Age.

It’s a town that has everything. It’s true what they say: when you’ve been to Hornsea, you’ve visited the ends of the earth.

It gives me a warm glow to think of it.