Saturday, 5 October 2019

Z remembers the house - er, hotel - where she was born

A friend said that blogging with Blogger is awkward on a Mac, so I thought I'd have a go; though in fact, she uses an iPad and I'm on the desktop.  The desktop iMac, that is, for you literalists out there.

We went to visit my sister last week, which was a lovely break.  We visited Weymouth one day, where I was born.  LT grew up a bit further along the coast, so knew the town rather better than I did; though everywhere has changed a lot in the past half century.  He decided not to go to his home town of Bournemouth, he thought it would be too depressing.  However, we were rather gratified to discover that Weymouth seafront and the old harbour were much as they had always been.


This is the old harbour. The side where we walked still has cars parked facing the water, but now there are huge sleepers to stop them rolling into the water as well as a kerb at the edge, which is very sensible but, perhaps, removes the little frisson of daredevilry that there used to be.






And here, in the random order that Blogger always loved, are pictures of the Riviera Hotel, where I was born and lived until I was three or four. It looks magnificent as you come round the bend and down the hill but is, unfortunately, marred by the funfair in front. It has been nicely maintained but it's not as smart as you'd think such a fine Art Deco building would be.


2 comments:

Vagabonde said...

You lived until you were three or four in the Hotel Riviera? That is interesting; did you parents have a flat in it? Anyway I had to look it up and saw that in 2009 it was sold to Saudi Arabian investors and they poured 4 million pounds renovating it in 2011 and started another renovation in 2017. It must be quite nice now.

But when I used to go to London I always loved going in proper bed and breakfast places. Not like those in the US, where B&Bs are thought as “boutique” hotels where prices are outrageous and trying to be super posh. They make pretentious breakfast, but my favorite where the good old British breakfast that I had in the UK B&Bs.

Z said...

Vagabonde, I'm so sorry I've taken all this time to approve your comment. I had an email saying you'd left one but didn't realise it was on here and I couldn't find it - I'd assumed it was on my other blog.

Yes, my parents owned the hotel and had a flat there. Sadly, the hotel isn't as upmarket as you'd expect from its appearance and location. It used to be down a bumpy track and that has been upgraded, but the scruffy funfair in front spoils its appeal.