A week in Whitby

I’ve been staying in Whitby, with my husband, the two grandsons and, for part of the week, our middle son, who is amazingly patient with the little boys and very good at distracting them and calming situations. He’ll make a terrific dad, I hope.

Whitby is an excellent holiday spot, but there are considerable contrasts to Swanage. Swanage is definitely more sophisticated, and groomed, whereas even quite smart places here are somehow brasher and in your face. Of course, there are lots of pretty rough establishments too, with bouncers in the evening. 

Beach huts in Whitby

The little boys loved the beach. It is actually a beautiful beach, smooth, firm sand with sweeping tides, so very clean, and just a few good big rock pools at one end. They played defending a castle from the tide – they’d never done it before and had the most tremendous fun. One thing we did notice is the size of the earthworks (“sand castle” just doesn’t do them justice.) People arrive on the beach equipped with garden spades; I was quite envious, especially since Phil kept pointing out how much bigger other people’s castles were. I only managed a bit of a swim because we had to keep an eye on the boys jumping the waves. On the phone to his mum, the older grandson was squeaking "I went in the sea and it was really rough and I was all on my own and the waves were going right over my head and I was all on my own and it was really rough" etc. etc. I had to take the phone and say that it wasn't quite like that, or she'd have been leaping in the car to come and rescue him. 

The other thing the boys really enjoyed was the port and the boats, and the 199 steps. We avoided mention of Dracula as much as possible. We didn’t want nightmares! There are loads of alternative shops – folk instruments and music, straightforward Goth, ironic Goth (sundresses printed with pink and blue skulls) proper antique, vintage, fossils and shells, gifts of all kinds, as well as the jet and jewellery shops.

So now we’re home and our son in law has the week off to look after the boys, so we are having a rest! But we’d definitely do it again.

The Olympics

I’ve been watching the Olympics on television rather obsessively. I did try for tickets but didn’t get any in the first round and then was so fed up with the system I didn’t try again. In any case, Phil was very negative about the idea of the London Olympics, and he is not keen on sport in the first place, so I couldn’t help losing heart. I’m sorry now, because the whole thing looked great – London and the Olympic Park looked marvellous, it all seemed to be very well done, and I won’t get another chance, after all.  Everyone I know who went has said how well organised it was, with lots of added value things like dance performances and explanations of how minority sports work.

Rhythmic gymnastics is a “sport” I thought was pointless, but I began to respect it – I still think the whole thing is a ludicrous endeavour, unless you want to be a circus performer, but the things they can do with their bodies! Similarly with synchronised swimming – it’s the most ridiculous thing, but you know how hard it would be to do anything similar, so you have to respect the swimmers even when wearing full eye make in the pool.

Sports I didn’t come round to are water polo – what’s the point of that? – and Taekwondo. They keep trying to kick their opponent, missing, and falling over. How would that work in a real fight, without a referee to stop your opponent? It’s just stupid. I’ve never been keen on basketball – there’s too many goals and hence, no tension. Handball seemed rather similar. I should think that they are both far more fun to play than watch. 

I had very mixed feelings about the dressage – I admire the horses and the training that has gone into it, but do they have to demean the horse by doing it to terrible arrangements of cheesy music?

I liked all the brilliant colour schemes. It didn’t look nationalistic, more welcoming. I liked the opening ceremony. If you knew absolutely nothing about British history, maybe it would have been confusing, but I think if you were reasonably quick on the uptake, you would have learned quite a lot about Britain. The forging of the Olympic rings and the whole lighting of the cauldron bit, with the young athletes and the”petal”  for every nation,  were exceptionally good. Just put McCartney out to grass please.

The closing ceremony, not so good. Some of the songs were a bt obscure and there weren’t enough sing along ones. You could see how much the athletes enjoyed it when they could. The LED lights round the stadium made a wonderful show. The highlight was Annie Lennox. We were simply staring at the screen in bemusement and we’re British. I thought it had to be a celebration of Whitby Goth weeks, someone else suggested that it was a memorial to the slave trade – it was weird, we all were giggling helplessly, and the commentators clearly had no idea either. Eventually (far too late) they identified the song as being from a Dracula film, which meant that my “celebration of Whitby Goth week” was not so far out. So why on earth did she choose that one? Was it something about celebrating Britain’s literary heritage – something the organisers of both ceremonies seem keen on? It was plain daft, and it will certainly be difficult for Rio de Janeiro to top that.

Through both ceremonies, I did like the determined Britishness, and to hell with anyone else’s over sensibilities. So sod the Pakistani and Saudi ideas about modest dress, sod American ideas about racial mixing and religion, sod the Russians and the Chinese and the Saudis and many others – let’s have paeons to personal freedom. Good stuff!

There are pervading stereotypes of the British as being buttoned up and inhibited. Having travelled around a bit, it seems to me that the British place a high value on privacy, but are much better at letting their hair down and enjoying themselves than, say, the Americans, and much less inhibited by worries about “face” than, say, the French. I hope the Olympics have shown this side of us to the world. And we are dreadful grumblers and very keen to put ourselves down, so maybe they have shown an efficiency and competence, that we didn’t know we had, to ourselves.