I died and went to Lyme Regis

Obviously, an overreaction. Lyme Regis was just what I always imagined heaven to be, ice cream, books and the seaside. One of the items on our house bucket list, back in May we planned a road trip to Lyme Regis to visit The Sanctuary bookshop and do a bit of what my housemate Laurel calls, exe-ploring (cos we go to Exeter uni and we were exploring yeah its clever, we studied English). ANYWAY.

So after about a 50 minute drive through Devon we got to Lyme Regis with the usual “I can see the sea!”. We drove around in Cari’s cute little yellow car looking for a parking space and trying not to get stuck in the teeny tiny streets. This was when I saw the first sign which told me this was the place for me; all the colourful houses which are typical of a seaside town. I see your Cornwall pastel colours and raise you an orange house with a yellow door and green window frames in Lyme Regis.

We parked and popped into a few shops as we made our way towards the seafront, a little trinkety shop, a tiny shop called The Writing Room which had little quotes stuck everywhere and pretty pens and thick handmade notebooks as well as a gorgeous leather vintage writing case. We carried on out of the shop through an archway and found ourselves at one end of the beach with nothing but the sea in front of us. 

After taking a few photos and taking in the beautiful view we turned towards the beach huts to the right and the potential of food, We wandered along the beach squealing at the adorable dogs and eyeing up the ice cream we wanted later but for now our mission was fish and chips. We bought some (laurel overestimated on the ketchup) and found a bench to sit in and contemplate the view of the cobb and the families running around on the beach. Only after did we see a sign that told us we had been sat in the Jane Austen Garden. We then headed back along the seafront, back to the bookshop we had come to see.

It was just what a bookshop should be, messy and piled high, each book a serendipitous discovery. I worked my way through to the back and was startled by Cari who came in and laughed at me, I was sat on the floor with a pile of about 10 books next to me. I was lying to myself and saying that I would pile them up as I went along and then sort them. (I bought pretty much all of them). We worked our way around and downstairs where there was a sofa and a very low ceiling (ow many bumps on the head). There were old vinyls, a rocking horse and piles of old copies of noughties vogue magazines cramped in with hundreds of national geographic issues. Shops like these seem to live out of time, no need for publicity or sales techniques or promotions. Like books, they don’t seem to be manmade, more like you are mining for gems in a cave, taking a book out of a shelf like picking flowers out of a garden. It was  a perfect place to lose track of time for an afternoon. 

After about an hour I made my way to the till with a pile of 7 books.

We decided to grab an ice cream before heading home and OH MY GOD this ice cream. It tasted of cinnamon and magic, imagine Ben and jerry’s cookie dough, but with bits of gingerbread instead. So we sat and stared out at the sea with the evening light and all decided this was our new happy place.

Happiness is… Looking into a sea breeze at the horizon.

We’d all been so stressed from our dissertations that getting out of Exeter, out of the uni bubble was just what we needed. Personally, the sea is my one stop fail safe cure for any type of illness. There is something about staring out towards the ocean that makes problems seem smaller, even fear of graduate life. It’s hard to have a problem bigger than the sea.

Reluctantly, we got up and walked back to the car for our road trip home. I may not have my post uni life sorted out just yet, but in 60 ish years I’ve planned where I’ll be. Reading in the Jane Austen garden in Lyme Regis.