Kentish temple

Now it can be told---I much prefer Ramsgate to Skeggy! Not least because of a return visit to the endlessly civilised Royal Temple Yacht Club. The sailing season hasn't fully got going so all is quiet (apart from a quiz night on the Friday, and even that is restrained). They don't do breakfast but the Ship Shape in the cliff arcade, more than suffices. And then to a place that really is a temple, the charming Sailors' Church. The early Georgian terraces of Ramsgate are now familiar, in some cases appealingly overgrown and in others, put to use for an evening's tennis.

On a rerun of the Margate-Ramsgate walk, I pass another example of Margate's gentrification with the creation of some giant street art. Round a headland, Joss Bay is having its week in the sun, while Broadstairs flaunts its Charles Dickens connections. The following day shows a beach scene in Deal. Although unmistakeably English, it's little more than 20 miles from France which makes London much further away.Read more