Weary Weymouth

Friday 21 June

We decided to visit Weymouth today. There was no direct bus route, however, so I drove. There is a relatively new park and ride service now in Weymouth so we took advantage of this as parking is notoriously difficult in the town. We disembarked the P&R bus near the harbour area, whereupon we walked around the harbourside to the Brewers Quay shopping development. We last visited here in 2007 and was impressed then, but not so now. Unfortunately, the recession seems to have hit Weymouth particularly hard as half of the shops had closed down. The sun was shining brightly again so we decided a better bet would be to head for the beach.

We took our shoes off and walked along the slightly pebbly beach, taking time to splash in the ice cold waters of Weymouth bay. It felt good to be breathing in the fresh, salty air on another warm (if a little windy) June Dorset day. We proceeded to enjoy another ice cream (it's rude not to) then lay down on a less pebbly part of the beach where we stayed for a few hours. Again, it felt good to lose oneself in the view of a south coast bay.

Later, we moved onto the main shopping area in the town and browsed for a while. The positive side to Weymouth is it's bay and it's a traditionally lively town. However, it has a significant percentage of less than desirable residents. We noted this last time we were here. It really isn't in keeping with the other resorts in Dorset (Poole and Swanage in particular are very easy on the eye) and it's not somewhere I would be comfortable walking around after the sun goes down(in this neck of the woods the unsavoury element have that distinctive west country pirate tinged accent which adds to the threatening tone).

The weather turned slightly later in the afternoon and became cool and cloudy so we headed for the local Wetherspoons(again!) and as it was Friday ate the inevitable fish and chips. We then caught the P&R bus back to the car and drove back to Heath Cottages. We both felt a bit lacking in energy at this point so stayed in our room for the rest of the evening, watching a bit of TV and chillaxing