To Poole, then – just down the road from Sandbanks, the bewjewelled teardrop in the Bournemouth Bay. People spend millions in order to live there. The surrounding areas must be nice, too.
Poole preconceptions: gentility-on-sea, abutting onto mossy, comforting estuarial waters. Hanging baskets outside Georgian terraces, gulls whickering overhead. Blue rinses, quiet tedium, the odd deli-cafe, quite a bit of pottery.
Poole reality: not so. We follow the main road down to where the internet tells me there are boats. Boats surely equals civilisation, no? A little caff, a classy little pub dishing out some freshly-landed treats, with some local ales and cloudy cider…
This is the image the website 'World Heritage Coast' chose to show off Poole. They're right, you know.
The road takes us past endless, mindless residentia until it comes to a chrome-barriered halt, at which point we’re confronted by a sight that makes you throw your eyes heavenward and mutter ‘for heaven’s sake, England, sort it out’. There, on the water’s front, where St Tropez has its marina, Mombasa has its old fort, Sydney has its opera house, Brighton has its pier – Poole has a 1970s shopping centre, with a parade of grubby fast-food outlets as its centrepiece, and a concrete works.
This was supposed to be dingly, not dingy.
A cursory tour around the ‘old quarter’ didn’t bring to light any hidden gems. By this time, the wind had whipped itself up into a fury and those low-lying grey banks of cloud had begun to spit. It was approaching half past two, and we were in the provinces. Uh-oh. Having failed to discover anywhere approaching feasible for our lunch, the feet carried us on and around, up alley and down thoroughfare until… until we were back where we started.
‘Spectacular views of the harbour’. Now there’s promising. A quick glance left: large piles of concrete. What’s it called? Inn on the Quay? Or the Spotted Cow? I can’t work it out.
Undaunted, with the thought that maybe the one-storey rise will help us see beyond the heavy industry to the sun-dappled sea, we head upstairs, past the muffin-topped barmaid and the goateed teenager sat ogling her.
A classic Saturday-afternoon upstairs of a pub – glasses and chairs hither and thither, whether from lunch or the night before never quite clear, laminated menus tossed to the four corners. Generally giving off the impression that someone had started doling out free chips down the road, and everyone had made a bolt for the door and never returned.
A gel-headed lad in an overexcited t-shirt approached: full of beams! A bit of banter! Ahhh. Laughs about the views of the harbour. Bonhomie through the bones, a giggle, a shared glance with wife – all will be alright, won’t it. Yes. I’ll have a burger, I’m famished.
“Oh, I recommend that one. It’s massive. You’ll never finish it.”
I’d forgotten about that – the idea that oversized portions are desirable. That somehow, two pounds of minced meat and cheese in a bun all for a fiver shouldn’t strike you as worrying, or a bit over the top. That the unholy alliance of gluttony and a dislike of unnecessary waste will force you into going further than you might have wished to with this grilled lump of fatty meat, overlooking a concrete works, as the rain spits against the window.
This shows that it's definitely called the Spotted Cow. In this photo, anyways.
But you know what? A smile, a pint of lager and some meat in a bun are cornerstones of a decent pub experience. So the beer’s unexciting. So I don’t want to know where the mince came from. But they fed and watered me, and were nice about it. Thanks, team Quay/Cow, whatever you’re called these days