An early start on Saturday; we were doing a one
day booze crusie to Calais ahead of N&R’s wedding.
Why is the Dover ferry
port so determinedly a non-place? Everything is so resolutely temporary - with
even less interest in dampening the transport infrastructure aspect than the
average motorway services - yet has probably been fixed in arrangement for
years. Of course it’s a transit zone, but evidently the fact that you are already
on your way somewhere at the time you arrive there is not precaution enough, everything
about the space guards against you getting too comfortable, and there is
absolutely nothing to soften the tarmac.
With time to kill on the way back we took a
detour into the Calais old town and an altogether opposite experience – a sunny
beach with rows of cheerfully weathered changing huts strung out along its
length - a different kind of temporary.
