Pass chippy with a wistful glance

A day in the life of Hastings: The fish and chip capital of the South Coast. Not that I can take advantage of that title. Even though every other café sells that and ice cream.

My problem is that my wife is a strict vegetarian, so I feel for the sake of leaving her outside the Blue Dolphin while I sit down and get stuck into a couple of pound helping of cod, is a situation that could prove to be a little bit vexatious.

We don’t go hungry though, ending up as we always do in one of Mr Wetherspoons’ nationwide nosheroos.

Hastings is a fair weather town; there aren’t many places on the front that you can shelter from the damp.

There is, I suppose, a bit more going on than the occasional visitor is aware of.

Three hundred and fifty yards off the front though is our domain; beyond that is the outback. It’s a situation that is, for us, never going to change.

But don’t worry Hastings, when the sun is shining, we’ll still be walking your promenade, eating your ice-creams; while I pass with a wistful glance, look at all those fish and chip shops on the front.