Junuary in Plymouth

A friend spent the month of June last year filming in Plymouth. He and the cast barely ever got to see the city for the rain that fell. They labelled their month in Plymouth 'Junuary'.

I've just spent five June days tramping around the city - in the rain. 'Well these five days, they were rare,' a real estate agent told me, then checked in for support with the vendor of the house we were viewing. 'We get lovely weather down here, don't we. There was a really lovely spell .. when was it? ... in March.'

The bonus of getting wet here is that a wind is pretty reliable so you dry quickly as well. And then the sun comes out and the whole city shines. I'm coming to think it a splendid place. As urban British cities boldly fronting the sea go, I'm not sure it can be beaten. It's less packed, touristy and squalid than Brighton, green hills of Devon and Cornwall wrapped around its vast natural harbour. I've been beaming into its housing stock, much of it Victorian and well kept, facades pretty in their pastel paint. The place has a dynamic feel to it, the city centre pedestrinaized into wide esplanades of greenery and fountains, fine new buildings arising, yet splashes of green still visible throughout. The park on Plymouth Hoe, where Francis Drake reputedly played bowls while awaiting the Spanish Armada, must rank as the slopes of public-access lawn with the finest seaview in the world.

I'm yet to learn of the city's literary heritage - the best I've been offered so far is the news that Agatha Christie once spent time on a nearby island - though plaques throughout my walks mark Plymouth's astounding marine history. My favourite among the new ones I came across marked the departure point of HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin aboard, off to the Galapagos to discover the material for his Origins of a Species. Not bad so far as literary precedents go.