I do like to be beside the seaside – Folkestone rediscovered

Spending a few days in Folkestone, which might surprise those who know I live in Dover. Longish quite nice story. Not for now.

It is beautiful in a way I had not expected even though I work here and live so close. It feels rough and ready in many ways and in many places, with ingrained grubbiness left over from a busier more nautical era that does nothing to reduce the charm and energy that exists there now, rather it acts as a counterpoint, an authenticity. Money has been spent on it, for sure, but that on its own would not achieve the lasting elegance and colour I have found. Wise and clever people-focussed spending is the key. Don’t be misled, there is significant poverty, sickness, mental turbulence. There is also grit, strength and heart to match and manage it, and the emerging beauty in the environment makes use of that and encourages the entrepreneurial activity I can see in abundance. What we create we value. The local initiatives have been rooted in the local communities, and that has given them a better chance of budding and flowering, and many of them have taken that chance and flourished – and those that didn’t are reinventing themselves and sailing in a new direction with the wind behind them.

As I write this I am looking out over the channel – I can see France, it feels as if I can almost touch our European counterparts. I can see the glorious Harbour Arm with Lowry-like people moving like ants in perpetual motion carrying their trophies – the view, a coffee, a book, their dogs leads – often overtaken by arrogant seagulls and for all the world like those desk toys that swing back and forth. Kinetic. That’s it! Folkestone offers a kinetic energy, a comfortable dynamism that is almost tangible.

I am pootling around the town for the next few days in between working. Perhaps there will be more to share with you about this glorious, throbbing, vivid, secretive, smudged, slightly slatternly but beautiful and blossoming coquettish town. It draws you in, promises to show you the sights, honours its citizens – the memorial arch is stunning and moving, all the more so, for some reason, as a result of the knitted poppies that surround it – and  Isaiah-like (“I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places”) keeps revealing, bit by bit, another of its treasures, another half-hidden bauble that it soon becomes clear is a precious jewel, and then yet another follows……

I know I have only skimmed the surface so far. I have plans to visit a few places that I would otherwise miss: have a pint on the harbour, breakfast at Beanos, dinner out somewhere I have yet to decide, spend time in the museum and galleries – there are many galleries and bookshops  in the streets leading from the harbour some of which also do coffee. Books and Coffee, two of my favourite things……There is a fabulous creative quarter – I work actually in it but not of it – and I need, literally need, to explore that. Restaurants and cafes will also be taking a hit.  I also need to walk around the bits that are not attractive to tourists, that shelter the people I probably know best.

Through this week I will be noting the fresh chapters,  great initiatives, seamy side and chequered entity that is Folkestone. It is likely I will share this with you…….brace yourselves.  I will try not to write after that pint! No promises…..