Finally we get to see the new Promenade in its entirety this year after all the work on the sea defences. The final section up past the Tower and towards the North Pier has now been completed and the railings removed.
I am impressed. I went down on Saturday morning, just before high tide, hoping for a spectacular sea as I have a particular photograph I need to take for a project. I was to be disappointed in that. One by the sea itself not being quite as high as I'd hoped. Then by the fact that the Central Pier is now closed to walkers from the very front of the pier. At one time in the off season you could walk up the sides and around the back of the arcade building and the pier was closed from that point.
As I crossed the road, the sun came out, leaving me in the shadow of the Golden Mile buildings but lighting up the Tower and the horizon.
There are some new sculpture features on the Central Promenade in the shape of several huge swaying "tulips". Those long stems are flexible enough to allow the heads to sail across the sky, quite a sight if you stand beneath them and look up! You find yourself looking at the slender stalks and wondering about their strength!
And there's grass. I wonder how long it will remain green because if there's one thing the new "Spanish Steps" that replaced the old sea wall will not do, it is stop the sand being blown off the beach onto and over the Promenade. Close to, the grassed areas are sand with grass sticking up through it. Green when viewed from the side, sand coloured when viewed from above. I think the Council's workmen will have their work cut out to keep those areas green, but I hope they do. Grass and a touch of something natural rather than man-made has long been missing from Blackpool's sea front.
In the distance is the new Wedding Chapel with its distinctive shape and single window that, from within, frames the Tower for those witnessing a marriage.
This is one corner of the new Comedy Carpet. A huge expanse of ground set out in columns almost like a newspaper layout except that alternate columns face north or south, allowing people to zig-zag up and down, reading catch-phrases, one-liners, jokes and sketch scripts of comedians from the days of Music Hall and Variety all the way through to the present day. You can find all of Britain's comedy greats here from the Crazy Gang, to The Office with many forgotten snippets of shows, bits of business between double act partners and the words to both Charles Penrose's Laughing Policeman and Morecambe and Wise's Bring Me Sunshine.
It was deserted almost as I walked up and down and I only saw a fraction of it in the time I had. I've been told it is wonderful to look at when there are a lot of people there because all you can hear is the sound of laughter and chuckling. Priceless.
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