Southend-On-Sea Day Trip

First of all, I know I haven't posted in a while. This is because I had all my wisdom teeth out under general anaesthetic and the past couple of weeks I haven't felt 100%. Without boring you with all the details, I'm OK now, but it will take a few months for me to completely recover from some minor complications - still, better than the discomfort my teeth have given me over the past 3 years. So. Yesterday we decided to go on a train somwherere. We looked at the map and as it was a nice day we thought we'd go to the sea.

We went to Southend on Sea, one hour from Liverpool St -- a truly British town with a 2km pleasure pier, the longest in the world (you can either walk or take a train to/from the shore). We saw skateboarders, old people with motorised buggies, chavs, teenage mums, tourists, punks, kids and regular people like us!

A man goes metal detecting during low-tide, Southend-on-Sea

The end of the pleasure pier has some tacky souvenir shops, a couple of greasy spoons and a take away fish and chips shop featuring... condiments!

Southend-On-Sea's promenade features even more fish and chips shops. Miraculously this place does veggie burgers too!

Again, the promenade is full of relics from its heyday. Here, a clairvoyant's booth sits nexts to a toy shop; although obviously both are currently not trading. Thankfully an old person's motorised scooter is there to add some life to the scene.

Just when you thought Winpy's had been outlawed, along comes one, again on Southend-On-Sea's promenade! This one has table service.

When you get off the train at Southend Victoria, you can't help but notice that there are a lot of chavs in the area. For the uninitiated, a chav is not so much a social class as a fashion-based alternative movement, who wear clothes which are somwhere between 'bling bling' and Eurotrash - and the clothes and jewellery are usually either fake or tasteless. They wear labels like Burberry, Von Dutch and Juicy Couture. Or usually rip-offs of these, as many aspiring chavs are teenagers who don't have the income. Chavs have come of age in the last couple of years and are prevalent in Essex (ie where Southend-On-Sea is). Yesterday we saw many in their pastel off the shoulder t-shirts coupled with (branded) tracksuit top and bottom, hoop earrings and extremely tight ponytails. The more daring girls will wear a mini-skirt with tall boots (one girl had these massive Uggs, and an extremely tight, low cut top). Many non-Chavs like me will turn their nose down on a chav, but chavs are usually proud to be one, and they are certainly intriguing characters. For more see ChavScum.

Last of all, the sea! It is a seaside town and all!

Posted by kimgilmour at March 20, 2005 04:23 PM