The main reason to visit Bexhill is the De La Warr Pavilion, the modernist icon built in 1935 by Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff. It's a lovely building; light and airy, even on a cloudy day, with a small but decent gallery space (currently showing a Joseph Beuys exhibition, on until September 27), and a nice comfortable-looking cafe (that we didn't actually try, as we'd brought a picnic lunch). The restoration has been done with a great attention to detail, making it feel simultaneously classically art deco and instantly contemporary — as all the best modernist spaces are. Like many seaside buildings, it sometimes feels like being on a boat — albeit a landlocked one — with its long balconies and a huge open sun deck.

There are some funny little temple-like seaside shelters in front of it, almost arcadian-looking. They seemed to be from an earlier time, but somehow don't clash at all with the Pavilion.

The same can't really be said for the eccentric terraces of houses nearby along the Marina, which are a wonderfully bizarre architectural mish-mash of Moorish minarets and classical English staidness. One terrace is clearly wealthier than the other, with a row of gardens facing the sea — this struck us as optimistic as we walked headfirst into a strong wind; especially the one with the overly manicured lawn. The other terrace is more rundown, and a quick peer into their courtyard showed lots of peeling paint and crumbling walls. There are also other different features between the two terraces, like the bay windows and mullions on the wealthier houses, and the social club and abandoned businesses on the poorer side.¹

Is that an urn with the dog's ashes in or what?

Notable things to glimpse from the bus were a cafe called The Coffee Pot with a badly-painted sign of a floating tablecloth on the gable wall, a gatepost painted to look like Toad of Toad Hall and, down on the seafront, a statue of two people either grappling or making love — the bus went by quickly, so it was hard to tell. We got off outside Marine Court, another example of 1930s seaside modernism that looks a bit like a boat. In this case, it looms like an ocean liner on the skyline, which comes as no surprise because it was actually modelled on that grand dame of ocean-liners, the Queen Mary, back when she was a young lady (as it were).

It's certainly a rather striking building, perhaps best observed from a bit of a distance (e.g. across the road), but when seen from the Hastings end you'll find it has a weird sense of perspective, where the bottom half veers away into the distance and the top half looms towards you. Beneath it is a rather sad and tawdry row of neglected shops that makes one almost long for the days when it must have been the height of glamour, especially when one considers that the kind of regeneration a place like that would get these days is to fill it with chains like Costa Coffee and Tesco Express, which would do the building no favours at all.

We wandered along the seafront and stopping to admire some lovely shelters and the Hastings weather station, which has some great cartoon illustrations on the barometer [click here to see all of them together in their full-size glory]

Hastings does have a pier, but it's currently closed to the public, awaiting restoration, so we veered off from the seafront and took to exploring some of Hastings' side streets, where we discovered a corner that could easily have been Manhattan in the early 1980s.

This insalubrious corner is in fact right next to Hastings Public Library, housed in the Brassey Institute, opened in in 1881 as a reference library by local MP Thomas Brassey. It's a rather nice example of High Victorian Arts and Crafts Gothic, although also in need of a bit of care. It would be great to see these wall frescoes restored to their full glory. (And I still don't know who Walter was; does anyone else know?) Close nearby is a rather odd-looking church and a truly hideous drinking-fountain. Also some shops and cafes, some of which still have some original features of the earlier businesses, liked curved windows and painted ceilings, which are rather nice.

On first glance, the centre of Hastings seems to have no character, being full of the same high street shops and chuggers as every town centre, but a little attention rewards you with a lot of interesting details.

Hastings Old Town has much more obvious character. We managed to arrive just in time to catch the last cliff train up West Hill (whoooosh!) to have a look at Hastings Castle, although it seemed to be closed, so we walked back down the hill and headed off to look at the fishing boats and drying houses at Rock-A-Nore.

This was the only part of Hastings that I remembered from our previous trip there when I was seven years old, and it didn't seem to have changed too much, except for the addition of a museum. That's all set to change very soon, though, with a couple of new developments going up: a new hotel building which looks intrusively out of place in the location, judging by the projected images on the hoardings (sorry no pics, I forgot to take one); and the rather more locally infamous Jerwood Project, which is the subject of quite a lot of local dissent. (It's unfortunate that the campaign website is so ugly it's not going to win over any of the design-conscious arty types that the Jerwood tends to collect, because some of their arguments are actually worth a look, especially the one that points out that they're not saying no to it all together, just in that specific location.) The location is, of course, currently home to the local fishing industry, and while it could be argued that it's not just Labour policy that's killing it (despite how the locals might feel), there's going to be a lot of bad feeling about any development which doesn't take that into consideration. (I'm curious what some of the architecture bloggers have to say about it, Owen in particular.)

For the time being it's a perfect photographic playground for someone like me, full of intriguing corners and a rich patina of weathering and grime. My camera battery was dying by that point, so it was a simple case of pointing and clicking instead of taking the time to focus on small details, but I managed to get a few wide shots that give a good idea of the atmosphere.

pic of Rock-A-Nore

Fish-and-chips by the sea is an essential part of the experience, so we headed off to the Blue Dolphin, as recommended by my friend Fiona, and excellent fish and chips they were too. It's easy to see why they're regularly touted as the best in town.

Then a stroll up the High Street for some window shopping (I remembered my phone has a camera that'll do in a pinch), where I discovered one shop selling furniture covered in Marvel comics, like this fantastic Fantastic Four one:

And finally, a horribly rain-sodden dash to the station to catch our train back to London, where I tried not to let the fact that I was forced to sit in sopping wet jeans ruin a lovely day (they were so wet, I left a puddle in the waiting room!). Hopefully it won't take me so long between visits next time.

More photos and anecdotes here.

2. It's mating season for the herons in Regent's Park.
And presumably elsewhere too, but last week there was an RSPB trailer there with telescopes and binoculars to watch them closer. Annoyingly, they closed at 4:00pm so most of us didn't get a chance to watch the birds closer. I did get a couple of photos of one bird who was stalking the people with bread and seed at the edge of the lake. I also managed to get a neat vintage effect to my picture when I was messing around in Photoshop, which I am pleased with.

3. There are no decent sunglasses in the shops at the moment.
I must have tried on at least twelve pairs in several different shops and nothing suited me at all. Maybe I'm just being too fussy, but I don't suit really boxy square frames or completely round ones, either, and I need to have frames that dip a bit over the nose-bridge, as sunglasses with frames that go in a straight line right across the top just look bloody awful on me. I like quite big lenses, as my face is too round for small ones, but not ginormous ones that make me look like an insect. The only trouble is that all the ones with decent-shaped frames are ruined by tacky bling on the sides. I don't want fake gold trimmings and diamante on my shades. I just want a simple, classy pair that doesn't cost a bomb (£10 or less) — I always buy cheap ones because they end up broken or lost all too easily. Suggestions gratefully received, leave 'em in the comments…

4. Sometimes whining on Twitter leads to being invited to fun evenings drinking with lovely people in lovely pubs.

5. There is a cash machine near Borough tube, if you turn left.
(hat tip to the real gent for letting me know)

6. That thing about policemen getting younger is true.
I passed two coming out of Southwark police station on Thursday evening and they both looked about twelve years old.

5. Easter eggs come from Chocodiles.
But we still don't know why it's a rabbit that delivers them.

6. The Lord Clyde is a lovely pub with lovely staff.
It's a proper old-fashioned boozer with a nice range of beers and a back room that we could take over. (Southwark seems to have so many great well-preserved pubs tucked into the most unpromising corners; it's one of the things I miss most about living in Waterloo.)

7. As far as American-style dining experiences in London go, The Diner is preferable to Bodeans.
It's more relaxed and although the prices aren't way cheaper they do seem a bit more reasonable. Plus the cocktails are really good.

8. There is no sci-fi or action movie which cannot be improved by the presence of nuns.

9. In The Loop is very very funny and very very sweary.
First film I've seen in ages where the audience regularly broke out into spontaneous applause at their favourite bits. Peter Capaldi is brilliant — his character is an intensely unpleasant person but gets all the best lines so you can't help but cheer him on, even when he's being relentlessly nasty for no reason. There's a great bit near the end when the camera lingers on him in a beat of quietude that brilliantly demonstrates the hidden depths of his character and the stresses he finds himself under. I was a bit disappointed by James Gandolfini, who seemed a bit half-arsed and never quite filled his character with enough convincing life to escape the fact that he was being played by James Gandolfini. I did have a great time playing "spot the location" though — there are lots of times when parts of the Royal Festival Hall double up for departmental toilets and meeting rooms in Washington, or the United Nations building in New York. The distinctive carpets (designed by Peter Moro) are a dead giveaway.

10. The website for In The Loop is rather good, too.
Although be warned because it has audio which may cause colleagues to look at you funny. Though if you've a sense of humour you'll be laughing so loud they'll already be looking at you funny.

Was back at the St Aloysius Social Club again on Saturday, this time for the Bust Christmas Craftacular. More crowded than the previous two events I'd been to there recently, and entry wasn't even free this time! Although they were handing out a guide to the tables. It was a pretty shoddy guide, though, two pink pieces of A4 (why did it have to be bloody pink?), printed on all sides and folded in half. Out of the resultant five pages remaining after the table guide and front cover, there was exactly one devoted to information about the event and the stall-holders — the rest was all bloody ads! On top of that, there were no actual issues of the magazine on sale anywhere, which was a bit annoying since I haven't got this month's yet. (In theory, they could even have been handing them out to interested people the way that the folks from Nude have done at the last few similar events. But they should at least have been on sale.)

Those gripes aside, there was a lot of good stuff on show, and I saw quite a few things I coveted for myself, although often the stalls were so crazy busy I ran out of energy just trying to get a look at them… As it happened, I had less than a tenner on me, and I was planning to also go to the WeMakeLondon fair on the same day, so I didn't spend a lot. But I did pick up loads of business cards, so I can do another long post of crafty handmade goodness full of great places for you to chuck your cash at.

Prick Your Finger – they stock yarn from British sheep, including rare breeds and hand-spun wool. The site is Flash-only though, which is really annoying!

Kirsty Kirkpatrick – "an anti-landfill fashion label," apparently. Reclaimed bits and bobs usually turned into jewellery, for sale here. It's mostly a bit fussy for my tastes, but I like some of the wine box necklaces.

Tatty Devine – I do like the sense of play that the TD jewellery has, but I also think it's too expensive! It was great to see the pair of them playing "Craft Doctor" to help people fix their problems, though, and they did seem like really approachable women, which was nice, too. But I find myself wondering who actually makes their stuff these days, since they are both so busy running the business and putting on exhibitions and participating in events like this and being interviewed in fashion magazines and so forth that they surely just don't have the time to make all the jewellery as well?

The Great Cake Escape – these girls have been getting loads of press, so I'm sure you know all about them already. Here's some from earlier this year.

Caz Potter – the site is not online yet, which is annoying because I can't remember what she sold, but it should be ready next week…

Eclectic Eccentricity – despite the somewhat cringeworthy slogan ("jewellery with inspired kookiness"), these were the prettiest and most original of all the reclaimed jewellery stalls, especially the lovely, lovely lockets, which I coveted, oh how I coveted. But I don't even wear the locket I do have. Having said that, I totally fell in love with this fabulous octopus necklace when I saw someone wearing one recently, and I'm delighted to discover where it came from. And the prices are really reasonable, too!

Moxie – a one-stop shop for beauty products, they sell on behalf of others, but the prices are in sterling which makes it easier than converting the dollar when buying direct.

Mr Wingate – great t-shirts and tea-towels featuring modernist buildings and alt.London landmarks. I nearly bought a tea-towel featuring an illustration of The Macbeth as it was only a fiver, and I've seen some insane gigs there. But I don't need any more tea-towels. Nice business-card, too.

Hellomemo – all sorts of lovely stuff, from knitted ice-cream brooches to notebooks. I like the bird cushions.

Made By Kate – cute monsters made by Kate.

Bbel – pretty jewellery, with lots of birds. I really liked the acrylic pendants. And the business-card is handmade; collage on one side and rubber-stamped on the other. Nice!

Carte Couture – funny sewn collages. Just don't mention furries.

Pom Pom International – rather silly but fun craft project created by Amy Lame, making great use of the ol' social media and the international craft scene, huzzah!

Experimental Letterpress Workshop – I bought some nifty letter-pressed gift-tags (five for a quid! Bargain!), and they gave me a nice catalogue, but it only features things to buy in bulk, which is a pity 'cos their stuff is nice, so hopefully they'll do more craft fairs as well.

Battenberg – new clothes and toys made from… old clothes and toys. Also, cutest business card alert!

Anthony Zinonos – illustration and collage. Quite fun.

I Like Pens – cards and notebooks in that fun, "naive art" illustration style that is so popular these days.

Lady Luck Rules OK – another stalwart on the "small craft company makes big" front, with stock that changes with the seasons, so I don't always like it. The customised babushka doll pendants they have at the moment are pretty though, and although I didn't buy it, the mirrored owl pendant just absolutely hooted Jeremy's name.

Love From Hetty & Dave – another owl here, a brooch handmade from coloured leather, was what caught my eye. I've been noticing owls a lot in illustration and design this year¹, so I passed comment on it with the designer, Zoe Larkins, mentioning that they've even been seen as Christmas decorations in Selfridges and Paperchase. She said she thought it was because owls were quite wintery creatures, and wasn't surprised at the numbers that have been showing up in design because "everyone likes owls, don't they?" (I'm not sure they do, but I do, so seeing them everywhere is quite cool.)

Custom Made UK – loads of fun stuff. And speaking of owls again, I totally fell in love with their owl tote! They've got a thing for the babushka dolls as well.

Kandy Diamond – I liked the crayon scarves. Also the purveyor of Sugar Paper: Things To Make and Do. I bought the recent winter edition, which came with a free "I <3 craft" badge.

Jess Turnbull – I so almost bought one of her fabulous flamingo brooches for Beth but I couldn't decide if the pink mirrored one was perhaps a bit too fabulous, if you know what I mean! They're only £6.00 though, and some of the other jewellery is fun too.

I didn't even make it to the WeMakeLondon event, because it finished at 5:00pm and not 6:00pm, which seemed a bit early for a Saturday in December. So I ended up throwing down my readies on some nice art paper in Paperchase instead. Which is fine.

¹In fact, I've been meaning to collect all the ones I've spotted on ffffound into one special blog post, with links to all the originating illustrators, but I keep forgetting to get around to it

I'm not planning on sending any Christmas cards this year (although I did design some), but I really like these Modernist London winter cards by designer Stefi Orazi. There's even one of the Isokon Flats 'round the corner from my house. [via]

I kind of fell in love with the the smaller charm bracelets and necklaces made from vintage trinkets and reclaimed jewellery at the Vanity Found table. They're pretty, and the charms are quite unusual. I particularly like the "tea for two" series, pictured below. Her business cards were also cool, and succinctly combined two of my favourite things, with contact details rubber-stamped onto the backs of found photographs. Such a great, and simple, idea — I'm almost tempted to steal it to make my own business cards, instead of ordering them through Moo next time…

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Ninja Bunny by Philip Spence is a comic all about the adventures of a cute, but evil rabbit with killah skillz. I like the badges. Badges and mini comics make good stocking-fillers!

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There are some interesting accessories made from recycled fabrics at Conversations With Flowers, like this fabric foliage bracelet.

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Julia Pott is an illustrator who makes art books which you can buy at her shop. They're a cross between travel sketchbooks, graphic design illustration and autobiographical visual notes, as far as I can tell. Worth a look for an unusual present, as they're less than a tenner.

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Jessie Chorley, makes art books and jewellery. I like the fairy-tale brooches.

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I also fell in love with some of the whimsical jewellery made by her studio mate Buddug Wyn Humphreys, especially the pretty pendants and brooches printed via enamel transfer.

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Mary Kilvert does pretty, feminine illustration and seems to favour birds quite a lot. She has an Etsy shop where you can buy lovely low-cost pocket mirrors and badges. This sausage dog badge set is a winner.

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Naomi Ryder does embroidery illustration. You might have seen her recent magazine work for things like Plan B. She doesn't have an online shop as such, but you can order work to commission.

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I bought this cute and funny little Gocco Print (below) from cactus hands for the princely sum of 50p, but she also had some lovely Christmas stockings on sale, made of unusual printed fabric for £8.00 each. Which would be perfect for you to buy for Crimbo, so Santa can fill them up, except her shop doesn't seem to be online yet. Shame, that. (She was also one of the Craftwerk organisers, but the other site doesn't seem to have anything on it apart from the flyer for Sunday's event, either. Ah well.)

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Annoyingly, the mmmbiscuits site seems a bit broken, as there aren't any proper links to the illustrations, which is a shame because I like her drawing style and wanted to show it off a bit here. She also makes and sells ugly-cute monsters, some of which can be used as pendants, like this one pictured.

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Really cute accessories from creamrose, mostly made from buttons with appealing illustrations on them. They have a great range of hairclips, earrings, badges etc. which are all quite affordable and would fit in an envelope for easy sending. I like the pretty, girly flowery hair-clips made from vintage buttons, like these yellow chrysanthemums:

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There was something incredibly familiar about Anke Weckmann's illustration, but I couldn't work out where I'd seen it before. It occurs to me that it's the kind of thing that shows up on ffffound from time to time. She has an Etsy shop where you can buy cool prints and brooches, like "this girl", pictured below:

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Handmade books and screen-printed cards from Alex Czinczel. I loved the tiny hand-bound Alphabat book (it would make a lovely poster too!), and the little book with the embroidered illustrations, but I couldn't really afford one, so I settled for a screen-printed chinchilla postcard at 50p instead. There's a fun quirky sense of humour about her work, though. Look! A dog playing the piano!

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This postcard image (below) actually shows up in the photo in Wednesday's Comiket post, because it was too big to add with all the business cards, but I actually bought it at Craftwerk. Great use of colour from Karoline Rerrie, but unfortunately her site isn't working either so you can't buy anything from her just at the moment. But when it is, you should! She also does a fun x-rated comic called Nurse Pussy.

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Xtina Lamb also doesn't feature in the photo at the top of this post because , being a friend of mine I already knew who she was and how to find her wares, but she's definitely worth a mention in this list because her handmade books and prints are ace! Plus, she sells hand-printed bunting at £2.50 a letter and you can buy the bunting-tape and threaders off her as well. Everyone needs a bit of bunting joy (and I'm not just saying that as an excuse to use my "bunting" tag again!)

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You can also find quite a few of these talented ladies on Flickr if you run a search for them.

Broadstairs has always had a nicer reputation than Margate, but it's still not overly gentrified, and has its fair share of tacky kiosks and shopfronts. It has an old-fashioned ambience, reminding me of the summer days of my childhood, with a nice dog-free sandy beach for swimming from, and another dog-friendly one full of rockpools to explore. There's a charming promenade along the cliff top, with some pretty gardens to stroll through, and which seems almost exclusively populated by Italian eateries. Most of these are independent, and a couple of them have been there for so long that they're local institutions, serving homemade ice cream in nice old-fashioned surroundings. We didn't actually have any ice cream, but we did get some deliciously fresh fish and chips (from a place with a bizarre mural above it and a bizarre pizza place next door to it), and ate them down on the beach watching the sea, with young seagulls eyeing us with interest. However, the seagulls didn't seem to be as aggressively predatory as they are in other seaside towns, and we were able to eat in peace.

After that, we wandered up to look at Bleak House, but, from the outside at least, it isn't nearly as bleak as the new-build apartment blocks on the cliff at the other end of the beach, which look completely out of place with their surroundings. Then we took advantage of a useful leaflet I'd found at the Shell Grotto (see previous post), which was published by CAMRA and listed local real ale pubs to be found on the Loop bus route. We went to one near the train station, The Prince Albert, which has a nice bit of art nouveau building decoration dating back to 1911 (see picture below). Unfortunately, I was disappointed to discover that, although they served real ale, there was nothing from a local brewery on tap, which was sort of the point of seeking out a CAMRA-supported pub in the first place. They did, however, have a mild on tap, which is not something that is all that easy to find, especially in London pubs, so we had a pint of that before realising how late it was, and rushing off to catch the last train home to London.

The Prince Albert pub

All in all, a really lovely day which served to remind me that I really should have made the most of living no more than two hours away from the seaside this summer, and should have visited the coast more often. It's not too late, though, especially as I hold hopes of having an Indian summer. Anyone fancy a trip to the seaside with me?