Bridlington, of all places.

For this year's birthday treat I recoil from the usual solo trip to the London galleries, which I love.

Instead, i discover there is an Art Festival in Bridlington, of all places.

Never heard of the place before but I am soon warned that it is a sleepy seaside place full of old people.

I book myself a ticket and a couple of workshops and also a room in a hotel and I set off, full of expectation on another early but charming solo drive to paradise.

I so miss the sea. Only to be in front of the waves will make my heart swell again and my lungs pump in the forgotten sea air of my childhood.

As it is traditional in me, I arrive far too early, so early that nothing is yet open, my hotel won't even give me breakfast -too busy serving the roomful for old dears- and the corner tea shop is not awake yet.

So I take myself onto a dreamy, gorgeously quiet and charming stroll along the sea front. I find a sun trap and place to sit to soak up the shy sun rays and, as if in a mysterious computer game, I find a handful of forgotten coins on my seat. I take this to be a good omen and feel confident that I am meant to keep the money. It is a sign.

After a long while and a few dozen of artistic and theatrical pictures of the shiny sea, the wet sand and the standing gulls -all meant for future master pieces in oil-, I finally make it to the tea shop - now open- for a spot of breakfast. I am the first and only costumer. The pot of gold found on the seat starts my day this way.

An elderly man pushes the door and addresses me like I am in charge, wanting to find a loo. I find this most amusing as there is nothing in my demeanour, my dress or my position to indicate that I am in charge or that indeed I have any idea about the gent's room.

Later, my well awaited festival doors finally open and I throw myself in a big tank or art-art-art. And in this tank I find the gentleman with the urge for a loo, and he recognises me and we talk and talk and laugh and laugh.

He is the enthusiastic father of one of the artist exhibiting and demonstrating.

For two days running I relish every exhausting minute of my art attack. I talk to artists, I talk to the public, I take part in workshops, I look and observe and then go round again for more and yet more.

In the process I find myself chatting to Peter, like all the others, a fantastic but unassuming artist, so pleasant and so helpful in my artistic ignorance.

He gives me a few pointers for future exhibitions and I get really hooked onto a myriad of wild possibilities never before contemplated.

The sense of joy that being there, just being, gives me is incommensurable. I doubt anyone could decipher the intensity of pleasure I can get from being, once more, surrounded by art, by artists and by the sea.