Mabelthorpe...

Drove over the Humber Bridge, and down into Lincolnshire. Explored Cleethorpes, Mablethorpe and Skegness, to reacquaint myself with some traditional seaside resorts. Cleethorpes and Mabelthorpe looked tatty, tacky, down-at-heel, but rather appealing too. Skegness - with its Butlins campus - just looked too big.

There’s talk of seaside resorts reinventing themselves, to meet the needs of 21st century holidaymakers, but Mabelthorpe didn’t seem to have bothered. It was like going back 30, 40, 50 years. It’s not an aspirational place (and that wins points from me). The food is fish ’n’ chips - simple as that - and the beer is cheap. The amusement arcades still attract enough punters to pay the rent. The shops are local, even the charity shops… which raise money for Keith’s Rescued Dogs Charity, the Great Dane Adoption Society and the Butterfly Hospice Trust (I trust that’s not a hospice for butterflies).

If there’s a capital of mobility scooters it has to be Mabelthorpe. I don’t know if the locals are incapable of walking - or just full of fish ’n’ chips ’n’ beer - but it didn’t look like a good advert for getting old. I’m in Boston now: it may be inland, but the river is tidal…

The City of Gold... in Mabelthorpe...