That’s 83 Degrees Fahrenheit, before anyone accuses me of being overdramatic. 28 Degrees Celsius just didn’t rhyme as well. At times, though, I probably would have believed you if you told me the air was near boiling point. It was hottt.
Like most Londoners, we’re always slightly baffled at what to do with really hot weather. Much as I love London, it is a bit lacking in access to the seaside. There are various outdoor swimming options but they get booked up incredibly fast on a sunny bank holiday Monday. I had managed to nab a spot at London Fields on Saturday evening but it wasn’t exactly chill, despite the cold water….it was “Swim for Fitness” and anyone who paused at the end of a lane to rest got hastily moved on. I swam for 8 lengths (it’s a 50m pool) and then got out, refreshed but not desperate to return with a non-swimmer in tow.
So, I decided to take the family out to Essex for some cooling down action. Along with most of the residents of the capital, as you can imagine. We have been to Southend on a sunny day before and knew how crowded it got, so I decided to aim for somewhere marginally closer and potentially less hectic – Leigh on Sea.
Spoiler: It was still hectic. There’s a photo later on that makes it look empty but that’s because I used Google Magic Eraser to remove all the kids in swimwear. You’ll know which photo I mean when you get there.
First tho, a bit of a drive. We had just turned on to the North Circular when we realised a trip to the coast might require some petrol. Which meant turning back off, after a very quick Google and some rapido lane changing. Then a wrong turn at a roundabout, a three point turn in a residential street, back to the roundabout, sharp right across two lanes of traffic and…result! A petrol station with a nice view of Redbridge tube:
That’s not me being sarcastic by the way…I love a Charles Holden tube building.
Finally, we were on our way and powering down the A13 with the “Ballad Lines” soundtrack on. The banks next to the road were filled with what looked like heather, so listening to the Celtic ballads it felt almost like we were in bonny Scotland instead of not-quite-so-bonny Dagenham. Pretty tho!:
There was another wrong turn at what was, to be fair to me, a very confusing roundabout, so we swung past the flagpoles of Canvey Island before getting back on track. I’d set the course for a small car park right next to the beach but spotted some other car parks along the way. The first one we tried – Belton Bridge car park – was tiny and full so we did some awkward manoeuvring before escaping back over the bridge towards Leigh-on-Sea station car park. I’ve been brought up to believe that station car parks are the most expensive places on Earth, so I was a little reluctant but it turned out to be very reasonable and there were loads of spaces. I paid by phone – as in, actually dialling a number and putting in my debit cards details, early 2000s style – and it was only a fiver for the day. On a non-bank-holiday weekday I think it might be £12 for the day but still, it’s cheaper than our initial plan, which was to get a hotel the night before. That proved fruitless due to half term demand, but it meant that whatever we paid for beach antics seemed reasonable in comparison.
Still, it was a 15 minute walk to the actual sandy bit. I might have been losing hope on the paddling front when we saw how far away the Estuary was:
But worry not! We eventually found some water. And some mud. A lot of mud. We walked through the car park we’d driven around and that brought us out at the end of the High Street., although for a moment I thought we were still in Walthamstow:
From there it was a relatively short wander to the bit where the coast bends round and somehow produces a tiny sandy beach at low tide. This is where you might detect a touch of the ol’ Artifical Intelligence in safeguarding this photo:
Trust me, it was not that empty. But it gives you a rough idea of how it looked – a small paddling pool formed next to the sand and then, further away, a kind of river running down to the sea. We got there around 11:50 and low tide was at half twoish so there was a lot of sand but also a lot of mud between the sand and the river. I wasn’t convinced but both kids charged down there and I figured I might as well join them. It was up to Roo’s waist at this point, which was decently deep but not quite deep enough to properly swim in:
We hung out there for 45 minutes or so while the water gradually got shallower and shallower. We could see the time on a church clock in the distance and figured this was probably our best chance at a cool down for the day so might as well enjoy it while we could. High tide was 8pm, which I think means the whole beach is covered but it seemed unlike we’d still be around by then. I know at some point the river would have filled back up again but I am very cautious with tides and it’s one thing to be out on mud flats when the tide is going out but quite another when there’s the possibility of getting stuck.
And yes, VK and I did sing a bit of “Benjamin Button” while we were out there.
Seriously though, if you make a similar trip to this please do be very aware of the tides. There’s a massive amount of mud the water needs to cover in a relatively short space of time and it would be easy to go too far out and not be able to get back in time. The mud is soft and sludgy and not reliable underfoot. I know my generation are always paranoid when it comes to quicksand but yknow, with good reason.
Anyway with my customary sea safety announcement out of the way, it’s back to the beach and digging a hole:
We hadn’t packed any lunch, just some Pringles and Squashies and some rapidly warming bottles of drink. So Nathan and I abandoned the kids and went in search for chips.
It took a long time. That’s pretty much all I’m gonna say. Oh and they didn’t have ketchup or 7UP or battered halloumi. I know I shouldn’t expect battered halloumi everywhere we go but I’m not just being London-pretentious, honestly. They advertised it but were sold out. Ah well.
At some point, I also made the error of leaving my giant sunhat in the cubicle overflowing toilet. Don’t do that. It is now rinsed off but pity poor Reuben having to retrieve it for me cause I had eaten too many chips and cba to get it myself.
Overflowing toilets and long chip waits aside, it was a mostly pleasant day. After lunch, VK returned to the river, which was now very shallow indeed, and just kinda lay down. I think she was becoming one with the primordial sludge once again. We did also walk a little way across the mudflats but I didn’t let them go too far, even at such a low tide, because of the aforementioned paranoia.
All was going well until some little twats decided to throw mud at us. Excuse my language Mother, but they really were. They weren’t little kids either – they were around VK’s age but any teenager who sees someone sitting in a river with a walking stick and decides to throw clumps of mud at them deserves to get a Mama Bear shouting at them.
Und I diiiiiid.
It was pretty much time to go anyway, so we rinsed off the worst of the mud (from the attack but also from the primordial sludge wallowing) and walked back through the High Street for an ice cream.
We sat in the shade for a while, with cold drinks and icy treats and that took the edge off the walk back to the station. I decided to use the loos at the station rather than chance the overflowing ones again but, although they were close to the car as the crow flies, this particular crow did not intend to fly over any live rails so it was a challenging 5-minutes walk back up the hill to get there. And being a bit peopled out by this point, I decided not to ask anyone whether I could use them and instead just bought a ticket to Chalkwell (£2.10) in case I needed to get through any ticket gates. What a terribly British way to get out of having to ask someone a favour. I’m happy to report they were overflowing slightly less than the beach ones though.
I realise I sound quite negative about our day but honestly, it went pretty well by our standards. We all got pretty burnt (don’t ask about the suncream story), a few chips got dropped and eaten by the seagulls but we had a dip in some saltwater, saw some sun and dug a hole. What more do you want during a heatwave?
