I alternate my morning walks, approaching the Prom from different ends each day. This morning I walked along North Road and then up past the back of Alexandra Hall. I like walking on North Road, it is slightly raised up and beyond the tennis courts, bowling green, odd little nonentity of park and the eye clinic you can see all the backs of the Prom hotels, B&Bs and halls. The houses are mostly huge and red brick with flowery front gardens, even the ones occupied by students. One house has a mass of teddy bears in its upper windows. They appear to be pressed against the glass. And they are the huge kind. It’s more than a little creepy. Is it a child’s nursery or nurseries? Or is it a series of rooms occupied by an adult with a fixation on teddy bears, such as Giles Brandreth, or nostalgia for childhood? I think I know who lives there and she’s a warm, amiable woman but there is a physical illness, I believe. And then there are the roses. Many of the front gardens on that road have them. They are beginning to spill their petals, some white, some pink, some yellow. Most have little or no scent much to my chagrin. I stick my nose in their centre as I walk by, no, no, maybe. The dog roses in the Castle park are the best. Sweet, heady and gorgeous. As are the wild climbing ones on our back path. They fill the summer morning with the smell of something like joy.
As I came down the hill alongside Alexandra Hall and tried to kick the bar (so cumbersomely these days) I noticed that an estate car parked nearby had its boot open. And someone was moving in it. They must have slept there overnight. There was a sleeping bag and several supermarket bags. It must’ve been cold but waking to the sound of the sea lapping must be lovely. Poor love, his bones are going to need a shake out. Then again it might be a woman. I saw a man/woman walking past the24 hour SPAR as I walked home. He/she had a beard and was wearing a black silk strappy dress, black doc martins and socks and was swinging a handbag rather half-heartedly. Perhaps he/she was trying a bit of cross-dressing out in the early hours to see how it felt. I hope it went OK and that they have the courage to have another go.
