Butlins redcoat demonstrates meaning of life

I returned from my holiday at Butlins, Skegness, on Monday, experiencing my first “staycation”.

The famous Zen koan of Hakuin Ekaku is: what is the sound of one hand clapping?

What caught my interest is that in the pavilion, a Butlins redcoat declared that one of them could clap with one hand. Intrigued by what might happen next, I tried to catch a glimpse of the one-handed clap in action. Unfortunately, my view was obscured, and I wasn’t able to hear what was being done.

So maybe it is one thing to clap with one hand, but it takes the truly enlightened to hear it. I wonder if the redcoats ever knew of the existence of the riddle.

World’s greatest mystery revealed, but view obscured

Here’s a view of the amusements down the road, along the beach, within walking of the Butlins complex:

Oh I do like to be besides the seaside, ‘ave a banana

Here’s a view of the beach that’s directly behind the back entrance to Butlins:

Notice the windmills in the distance

Here we see the plucky British making the best of it. The sea is behind the sand. Those things sticking up are windmills. They didn’t seem to do much rotating, so I assume that they were a colossal waste of money.

Unfortunately, I only had my Nexus with me, which is rather unsuitable for taking good quality photos. I would have liked to have taken some better pictures of the windmills, which were generally more visually striking than is suggested by the pictures I took.

More of the same. Some tourists are about to plop down on a towel. Or should that be towel down on some plop? The water looks pretty manky, you know.

 

 

RNLI lifeguards, Skegness.

Thanks go to the lads for agreeing to have their pictures taken. They were good sports about it and were happy to oblige.

During the last day of my stay, I started to develop a nasty cold. I was fearful that I would not be in a fit state to drive the 500-odd miles back home, but fortunately my body seemed to repair itself a little during the night. So my trip home was actually less tiring than the outbound journey.

Having taken a look at the recent decimation of my portfolio, it might be my last holiday in a long, long while. Hey ho.