Saturday, 4pm: arrive slowly
Check in, drop the bags, resist the town for half an hour. Take the window seat, or the courtyard if the fig is in leaf, and let the pace change gears. The sea wall has been there since before Victoria; it will wait twenty more minutes.
Saturday, 5pm: the first walk
Left out of the door, along the front, past the fishermen's huts to the harbour. Nose around the south quay, watch the whelk boats unload if the timing is kind, and read the day's landings chalked by the fish market. This is your menu research for later.
Saturday, 7.30pm: dinner downstairs
We would say that. But The Shuck books out for a reason, the blackboard answers to the boats you just watched, and the second-best table in the house is kept for hotel guests until seven. Start with a half dozen naked rocks. Effie's rules apply.
Sunday, 8am: the swim
The bit everyone threatens to skip and nobody regrets. The regulars gather where the Street meets the beach, every day of the year. Borrow a robe and a hot flask from the desk. Ten minutes in the estuary sharpens the whole day to a point, and breakfast afterwards becomes a religious experience.
Nobody has ever come back from the morning swim in a worse mood than they left in. The front desk keeps records.
Sunday, 10am: breakfast, properly
Full Kentish, or kippers, or the brave option: oysters and brown bread. Then the high street while it is still quiet: the bookshop that wraps in brown paper, the record shop, the cheesemonger. Buy the picnic now; you will want it at three.
Sunday, noon: the Street, tide permitting
If low water lands anywhere near midday, and the desk will have told you, walk the Street: a shingle spit that lets you stroll half a mile out to sea between the retreating water. Turn around when everyone else does. The tide is friendly but not sentimental.
Sunday, 3pm: Tankerton slopes and the bench
Climb the grassy slopes past the beach huts, picnic where the view opens, and hold the bench at the top for the last act. The sun sets over the water here, which east coasts are not supposed to allow, and the whole town quietly turns to face it. Then home for one last half dozen before the train. The tide will already be writing tomorrow's edition.