Week 292: Pier review

I spent Monday doing nothing, watching TV series, taking a nap, and by the evening I felt mostly recovered from the previous weekend’s exertions. Tuesday was wasted waiting in for a delivery that was postponed, and a Royal Mail collection that I’d arranged for the same day to kill two birds with one stone, but which didn’t happen until after three o’clock. The evening was better, though, as an old friend from Belgium was in town with her family, and we all met for dinner. My parents, also in London for a few days, came for dinner on Wednesday. When I saw that c2c were offering £15 return tickets to Southend-on-Sea this summer, I thought that I should take a day trip to a place I’ve never been. As it happens, I have a Network Railcard, which means that an off-peak day return is more flexible and cheaper still, but the seed was planted, and Friday seemed like an ideal day for it. This is Southend At first, I thought I’d catch the train from Stratford, but there’s no direct route from…