Category: Travel

What are you looking forward to?

BOOKING A HOLIDAY…………YEAH!

Very soon we will all be able to go on holiday. Wales, Scotland and England all have different opening up dates, but the important one for us here in West Somerset is the 12th April. This is the earliest date that you will be able to take a break in self catering accommodation. So if you’re planning to get away at your earliest convenience best make sure you’ve booked with someone who will honour your booking if for any reason it all changes for the glorious 12th!

Speaking with a friend who works at one of the local holiday parks I was informed that caravan sales have been steady all through lock down with people buying using virtual tours to make their decisions. I was also told that holiday bookings were going really well with some weeks completely booked up already.

So it looks like it could be quite a busy season. I’m sure that it will start slowly (I wouldn’t want to book for the 12th and find I might not be able to get away) but the momentum is already building.

RIDING THE TRAIN…………YEAH!

The West Somerset Railway is re-opening on Saturday 22nd May. Great news for all those in need of a train fix. I was however upset to discover that although the WSR is reopening, the limited service will not get as far as Watchet! The first trains will run from Bishops Lydeard to Williton and return. The plan is that as Government restrictions are lifted the train service will extend to Watchet and Blue Anchor on Saturdays. It is hoped that by July the whole line will be available. The line needs to be fully open for September so that the 1940’s weekend can go ahead. YEAH!

VISITING THE MUSEUM…………YEAH!

The Watchet Boat Museum and Market House Museum will be open from the 17th May.

NEW FOR 2021…………YEAH! YEAH! YEAH?

The new East Quay development is due to open during the summer. With 12 workshops, a papermill, geology lab. art gallery, café and with plenty to do for the family, the East Quay will be the place to visit this summer. YEAH!

Watchet Marina has new owners and they are promising great things. Looking forward to saying goodbye to the mud and ‘Hello’ to the Sailors!! YEAH!

Your visit! See you in the Visitor Centre…………..YEAH?

Here comes 2021….

It all starts the year before………

In January we publish the Welcome to Watchet leaflet. The biggest part of the leaflet is the Calendar, the diary of events, the Whats on in Watchet! We spend the end of the winter collating all the local information about dates and whats happening and when. The leaflet then goes off for production and at the end of February a lovely glossy leaflet arrives for distribution. This is handed out all over West Somerset, taken to leaflet events, delivered to businesses and Visitor Centres countywide.

Our delivery arrives………..

In February 2020 I received 15,000 leaflets for distribution. We had no idea what was to follow very quickly after that delivery.

And mayhem begins…………..

Sorry we have to cancel Watchet Summer Time!

Sorry the Street Fairs will have to be cancelled!

Sorry we have to cancel Watchet Carnival!

Sorry we have to cancel Watchet 40s Weekend!

Sorry we are cancelling the Market until further notice!

Sorry we’re closing the pubs…………………….Nooooooooo!

Due to Covid-19 Watchet has had to cancel all of its amazing events and activities over the past 6 months.

PARTY CENTRAL

Known locally as ‘Party Central’, Watchet has reverted to a quiet harbour town. The tourists have visited and most have enjoyed the peacefulness that this town has to offer, the safety of a town that has fortunately missed much of the horrors of the pandemic. But for those of us who are used to a town full of action and fun, for those of us who love the normal weekends of activity and mayhem it feels like we are a town in waiting, a town waiting to emerge from the chrysalis of Covid 19. Watch out 2021 the residents and regular visitors of Watchet are itching to take central stage once more. Watchet the coiled spring of West Somerset feels ready to be released, ready to emerge once more into the amazing, lively, fun filled place it can be!

There are rumors of new things to be added to an already full calendar. Of Fringe Festivals, of Reenactment weekends, of Drama and YES things will need to be different, but with so much time to forward plan we are all hoping that events organisers can start to make arrangements, can start to make announcements. The dates of the Watchet Festival have been announced this week and we wait for all the other groups to start adding their voice.

Over to you………….

If anyone has anything to add to the 2021 calendar please contact me I’m itching to get started. Here’s to a bigger and better line up, more events more fun and far lest Covid -19.

PS. If anyone has any ideas what I can do with 15,000 Whats NOT on in Watchet leaflets 2020 let me know!!!!

Just another hole in the wall!

STORMY WATCHET.

During the high tides and winter storms Watchet harbour wall was damaged just before Christmas. Overnight the Victorian Sea defenses were breached leaving a hole which was rapidly filled with 3 ton boulders as an emergency repair. The subsequent battering from storm Ciara in February and then storm Dennis only a week later, removed tons of concrete , stone work and the emergency placed boulders creating such a large hole that work is still ongoing today.

The following is a poem written by one of our Watchet Poets, inspired by the hole in the wall.

Perhaps we don’t know the truth at all?

WHAT THE OCEAN SAW.

Statutesquely, it lay, plotting its escape from behind the old sea wall,

Calculating its imminent hatch between rhythmic tides and seagull’s call,

Sustaining solely on saltwater and a few errant sea creatures,

Discreetly tucked amongst the breakwater-defence’s still features.

For about a hundred years it sat, its patience growing incredibly small,

Until one dark night, in utter despair, it broke through the harbour wall,

The wall shook and roared and the tide paused a minute,

Curiously teasing at the harbour wall and what it had hid in it.

And then without a warning and with a triumphant shout,

The beast behind the harbour wall shot, canonically, out,

In the pale moonlight, it remained, blinking, startlingly blue-eyed,

Drinking in the salty-spray, under the stars, It’s deep-longing; satisfied.

It ducked under the swell and stretched out a hundred years of wrinkles,

Breathing in its ocean home, toothily smiling at rock-bound winkles.

Returning to the height it once had, its skin glowing with the dew of the tide and contented bliss,

It stared, disdainfully back at the stone cage, that it knew, it would not miss.

Its Clam-shell heart soaring to its luna love, it caught a wild wave in haste,

And rode it fast and far away, jaw dripping with freedoms fresh taste.

The ocean caressed the empty pit, her hands soft with morning

With a sigh, she wished the beast, ‘bon voyage’ and felt a new day dawning,

As the sun tickled the ocean’s curves, She recounted the night to her frothing history,

A harsh whistling wind, a grand escape and a Conan Doyle-esk, unravelled mystery.

The people came the next day and postured the consequences of a crumbling sea wall,

Many of us had theories, but only she knows of that night’s events, for the ocean saw it all.

Deanna Payne ‘Twitch’

(Photograph courtesy of Terry Walker)

GEOLOGY & COAST

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Category: Travel

What are you looking forward to?

Here comes 2021….

Just another hole in the wall!