After working the morning, I took the afternoon off to pack for a weekend away in Seaham. It was something we did a couple of years ago, and we loved sifting through the sand looking for sea glass on the sea shore (she sold all the sea shells, whoever she is, so sea glass is the new sea shells) and so we booked a return and stayed in the very same apartment as last time.
We’ve been getting our son into the spirit of the World Cup by teaching him some of the songs and anthems that get a good airing on Spotify at this moment in time, so he was confidently belting out ‘Me and me Mam and me Dad and me Gran, we’re off to Waterloo; me and me Mam and me Dad and me Gran, with a bucket of Vindaloo’ on the car journey there.
Bucket!
Proud moment. It nudged his score of 5/5 in his spelling test into second place in a list of his achievements today. It did make me wonder how unappetising it would be to use a bucket as a vessel for your curry, but it clearly wasn’t a concern for the Colonel as KFC have been selling chicken by the bucketload quite literally for years, possibly pre-dating Vindaloo — and maybe, just maybe, that’s where Fat Les got the idea from. I could absolutely believe Keith Allen would eat out of a bucket. Alex James and Damien Hirst, absolutely not.
We got some fish and chips from Downey’s — one of five fish and chip shops in and around the Sunderland area owned by a couple of brothers — and ate them out of a box. One of the brothers is called Glen and he spent 18 months a Grimsby Town player. He barely played in all that time but did come off the bench once, in an away game at Wrexham, and scored a winning goal. He never played again, so he became one of the club’s most enigmatic players. He’s since cracked on building his fish and chip empire in the North East. They’re pretty good, and as someone who grew up eating fish and chips every weekend I’d say I’m more qualified than Grace Dent to say whether a chippy is good or not.
We spent the early evening getting our eye in for spotting the little nuggets of glass that sparkle among the pebbles. It’s a fascinating beach and we could’ve spent longer there, but with the temperature dropping and tide encroaching we decided to call it a day and headed back to the apartment where we watched those crazy Canadians snatch a draw against Bosnia.