O
to visit Lyme! I'm told I've been there on one of the two occasions
we holidayed in Bridport, but don't remember it. I remember nothing
of it, that seaside resort, not walking along the Cobb, not shell and
fossil hunting, not visiting the museum, not any of the things I'm
told in a family group we did. My memory retains other snapshots,
some of which exist as photographic evidence: a wooden dining table
in a country-style kitchen and Nan Miriam unwrapping, then
christening, her birthday present (a teapot); an indoor swimming
pool, a Minnie Mouse costume and a giant inflatable whale, though I
would probably not have placed them in Dorset; I wouldn't have been
able to place them, physically, geographically, anywhere.
Lyme,
at maybe 7 or 8 years, did not call as it later did, and still, every
now and again, does. The Lyme Regis of Jane Austen, John Fowles, and
even Beatrix Potter, another keen fossil hunter. O to visit Lyme
again!
Picture credit: From the Old Walls, Lyme Regis, 1932, Richard Eurich (source: WikiArt).
From journal, December 2021.
