By the seaside, beside the sea

I really have been on holiday recently to Southwold in Suffolk. The town is a fading resort that has been lately become popular with London types with loads of cash - not me (the cash, not London bit).
It's easy to see why. The whole place reeks of a more innocent age. It has a renovated pier which is quaintly decked out in white clapperboard huts containing whimsical exhibits. The railing is covered in metal plaques with messages like "Dolly and Brian. Many happy seaside memories".
The town itself is small enough to walk round in ten minutes and you keep seeing the same faces every night in the pub.
It is a real locals town and the newspaper is a hoot - full of petty feuds about hanging baskets, and micro news about local characters. Very Richard Curtis, who not surprisingly lives in next door Walberswick. The first episode of the new Little Britain was filmed there too, which seemed highly apt to me.
As with many places, visitors are tolerated for the money they bring, but the locals are probably glad to see the back of them. Not that they ever will though as 60% of houses are second homes. Despite this, it is one of my favourite places and like a quasi-local I don't like other people finding out about it, despite writing this and telling everybody I know what a great place it is. And it is a great place to visit, but don't stay too long, especially once I become loaded enough to buy there.
Reasons I like Southwold:

• Beer - not only is Adnams brewed in town and every pub serves it fresh, but you are near a fantastic microbrewery that is a must visit for ale heads
• The annual crabbing contest in Walberswick which apparently produces T-shirts with the slogan 'I caught crabs in Walberswick'
• The Nelson pub - quite possibly my favourite boozer. Look out for the awful poem to the pub in the back snug
• Bracing walks down the coast with Thorpness nuclear power station looming menacingly in the distance
• Great fish and chips from Mark's. But be quick as they close at 7pm
• This mad museum nearby. A park for old planes. It's free and right behind a pub
• The sign in nearby Bungay (which is almost a hilarious name in its own right) where some wit has ammended the sign to the Swimming Pool to Swim in Poo
• No work

Back home now though and all the better for it.