Rottingdean - Part 3 of 3

Only a few steps from the car park where, I had my usual chat with the parking warden, is Rottingdean’s only hotel overlooking the ocean. I had walked past it several times during previous visits to the town but never ventured in. It looked tired but I decided that on this one day I would check it out for lunch and as a place to stay during our next visit.

If the place was ever put up for sale the hook or strapline on the estate agent’s sales brochures would include “Has commanding sea views”.

My Reactolite glasses didn’t adjust very quickly from brilliant sunlight to the dusky like light of the bar area. Consequently, I was falteringly wandering around like a blind dog in a butcher’s shop trying to find a menu. Each table had a menu card but they were for drinks and not food.

“It’s behind you” came a voice from behind the bar. Obviously an actor filling in between the end of panto and the start of the end of the pier shows for the summer.

“Behind you…in the holder on the wall.”

Ah, so they are. When my glasses had adjusted enough I read the menu and made a choice. I walked over to the bar to order. The bar man saw me coming and disappeared. He returned a few minutes later and I placed my order.

“A prawn cocktail and a low alcohol lager please?” I asked.

“What’s your table number?”

“It’s that one over there. In the corner near that window” I answered.

“I need the number. I can’t put the order through until I know the table number.”

Bearing in mind that there were only two other tables occupied for lunch and they already had plates in front of them I did wonder if the barman was doing a urology job on me. The first table I came to was fifty seven. I returned to the bar.

“Fifty seven” I said which he keyed into the screen.

“On second thoughts I’ll eat outside.”

Honestly, I said this without any malice aforethought or through a wish to express any revenge on the bar man. After all, the sky had cleared and it seemed a shame not to enjoy it over a light lunch.

The bar man raised his eyebrows.

“That one there just outside the door on the right” I said knowing full well what the barman was going to say.

“I need the table number” he said.

There was another customer waiting behind me to place his order.

Before I walked to the terrace I said that the bar man could serve him while I was on my adventure.

“Can’t do that until I’ve finished with you. I’ve got you down for a prawn cocktail and low alcohol lager” the bar man answered.

“Jeez” I said to myself, which was almost an invocation of a higher authority, a contagion I had caught in the library maybe. I would have brought my trainers and track suit if I had known that my £10 lunch was going to include a spinning session.

Across the street from where I was sitting a black estate car pulled into a parking space. As soon as it stopped, if not nanoseconds before, a family of Dad and three or four variously aged youngsters tumbled out on to the pavement and headed off to the beach. The last person to get out was presumably “Mother”.

“Habeeb! Habeeb!” she called.

The man with children afoot looked back.

“Habeeb! I need some money for the parking.

Habeeb shrugged his shoulders and carried on walking towards the beach with a train of children behind him getting excited about their day on the beach.

“Habeeb!” she called one last time before getting her phone out to use another of those new-fangled digital devices for making automatic payments. They are so dependent on a good internet connection and infinite patience on the part of the parker. Or, would a person paying for parking be a “parkee”? While she was sorting this out Habeeb and the children had disappeared somewhere along the seafront leaving Mum to sort things out.

The lady obviously hadn’t been in Rottingdean long enough to have caught the local habit of invoking a higher authority to ease her frustration at Habeeb’s neglectful behaviour or pay for her parking ticket.

At least while I was having my lunch overlooking the ocean I did not hear any emergency services whaling their sirens in the direction of the library

When I met my wife later at the end of her day I told her about the hotel. I said that it looked tired both inside and out but felt comfortable in a slightly quirky way. I told her about the grumpy bar man. Her reply was that I shouldn’t be so harsh as he may have been having a bad day Fair comment but why make me do a spinning class?

The next time I went there for lunch the grumpy bar man must have been off duty and another one looked after me. When I ordered he asked which table I was sitting on.

“That one over there” I replied pointing to a table in the far corner of the restaurant.

“Ah, that’ll be table twenty two. I’ll bring your drink over for you.”

While I was waiting for my lunch the bar man came over and we had a chat. We talked about the area, the hotel and the hospitality industry. The hotel was built in the 1930’s He was someone who was genuinely pleased to be working in the industry and enjoyed every day. Nothing was too much trouble but not in an overbearing way.

It was then that because of this new attitude that I decided we should try and stay here next time we were in the area and we did.

A month later we were back in Rottingdean and had been booked into the tired hotel overlooking the ocean. The room we were allocated was on the first floor and faced over the ocean. It wasn’t modern by any standards but it was clean and comfortable. What more can a hotel offer? Not much if anything except for trying to charge £45 for an extra guest which this hotel didn’t.

Having slept with the windows open and the sound of the ocean washing through the room we both woke up feeling refreshed. It was too early to have breakfast but never too early to go for a walk. Far out to sea and playing hide and seek with the Rampion Wind Farm dark storm clouds reached down to the horizon. A fisherman stood on one of the huge groins casting. As we walked on we saw some flashes of lightning and then heard deep rumbles of thunder. Then we felt the air chill, a few drops of rain and noticed the storm had come a lot closer to the shore. We saw the fisherman with all his kit packed away.

“Any luck today?” I asked.

“A couple of bass but standing out with a rod in a thunderstorm…not the cleverest thing to be doing.”

Back at the hotel the friendly bar man from my previous visit was now the friendly breakfast waiter. He checked us in and showed us a table.

“We have a new breakfast menu now" he said with a flourish of enthusiasm.

We were expecting something dramatic to match his statement. Maybe something as adventurous and as un-British as steak and eggs with Guinness. Or American pancakes or waffles with maple syrup and crispy bacon. Alas no. There was nothing like those on the menu. Just the usual full English breakfast with your choice of eggs, eggs Benedict, eggs Royale, smoked salmon with scrambled eggs and a continental selection of pastries, cheeses and cold meats

“Yes, they have redesigned it so you can have soda bread if you want to” he announced proudly.

April to July 23