Signs Of The Times
I fell out of bed this morning (when will I ever get used to this house?) and insisted that we all head off for a family trip to Nairn. We were on the road by half-past ten and cruising along the back road that runs past . Twenty minutes later at we were at the seafront looking to see if much had changed since our last trip there about eight years ago.
Not much, as it happens, although a big Victorian hotel seemed to have been replaced by a block of modern flats. But the Links Tearoon was still there and I have to report they make a fine cuppa. They do go a little over the top when it comes to customer advice, mind you. There are signs everywhere. One advises customers to "be patient", another that "unattended children will be sold as slaves". Outside you're requsted not feed the birds and, on no account should you try to consume your own home-made picnic at the tearoom's picnic tables.
The Zedettes eyes were drawn to a sign on a building along the beach that promised "Fun Food". This was closed so we could only speculate on what this might have been. Sausages on spings, perhaps? Exploding kippers?
More poignant was the inscription on the small stone war memorial which commemorated the infantrymen who had trained on Nairn's beaches prior to the in Normandy. It's strange how, as we grow older, we're drawn to these kind of solid reminders of our history. When I was growing up my Dad would drop in the odd story about his own wartime experiences in the . It all seemed so far away. It was like a black & white movie or yellow cuttings from an old newspaper.
He's eighty-five now and those memories seem so much more important. Thank goodness some have been preserved in stone.
