Staycationers Go Home!

Well, I made it to the coast yesterday without getting lost - a huge improvement over my previous outing, which had left ,e wandering around some woods for hours on end, unable to retrace my path in.  One again, though, upon arriving in Milford of Sea, I found the main car park, the one with all the amenities, packed full.  Now, I've been visiting this part of the coast every Summer for more years than I care to remember and this is the first time I've experienced this.  By this time in the season, it is usually half empty, but twice this Summer, I've been unable to park there.  I blame those bloody 'staycationers': unable to take their holidays abroad because of the pandemic, they've decided to try and crowd me off of my regular beaches instead.  I wouldn't mind, but these are the very people who, in years past, used to look down their noses at me because I took my holidays at home.  The sort who used to shake their heads sadly and condescendingly at me when, after they'd bored the pub with their tales of their overseas holidays, asked where I'd been and I'd just say 'the coast'.  

Anyway, I ended up parking in the car park further down, the one without amenities, which was only about a third full and took a walk along the beach to the other car park to buy an ice cream.  The beach, inevitably, was swarming with these 'staycationers'.  It was quite a sight, normally the sort of people you see on an average August day are ordinary, often middle aged and rarely displaying much flesh to be sunburned.  You might see the odd wind surfer, but generally there are only a few swimmers in the water.  Yesterday we had hordes of bikini and speedo clad sunbathers, most of whom weren't really in any shape to be displaying so such of themselves and a plethora of wet-suited types with various upmarket inflatable boats, rafts and the like.  I know, I know, I'm being a miserable git.  These are, after all, public beaches and open to all.  But it is galling, as a regular, to see them taken over by these would be sophisticates.  It was bad enough when all those northern bastards started coming down and taking over the beaches in places like Bournemouth and Weymouth.  I can only assume that the people now appearing on my beaches have been displaced from these larger resorts by the invaders.  You know, I even had to queue for that ice cream!  An unheard of occurrence!