I arrived back from a lovely long weekend in Rye – great place (The Place on the Beach, check it out), great food (at The Place and The George inn) via a nasty 24 hour bug which hit me right between the eyes – to find Chelsea .. well … dead. It feels like one stop short of pulling down the shutters for the month of August. Seriously, it’s about as busy as the Newcastle United season ticket office here. Apparently Chelsea residents go all Mediterranean and hang out in the country residence, timeshare, villa or on the island (that’s more Knightsbridge) or boat.

Our fantastic fishmongers, wine merchants and other business owners have told us that takings are generally down by as much as 50% for this period and that they are cool with that as it gives them time to review the year and plan for the run up to Christmas. Interesting me thinks as obviously this kicks off the debate in my head about why we don’t formalize the month of August as a vacation just like The French and how it could help us all…. later.

So what to do? Loads of options:

  • Organise a street party where we can all get to know our neighbours. Make it a lunch though and steady on the booze in case old Leylandii hedge grudges boil over into full on punch ups. Go to www.thebiglunch.org
  • Throw a proper house party, make the most of it and turn up the music and brush up your DJ skills. Go to www.learnhowtobeadj.com
  • On a similar theme, get in Guitar Hero – Metallica, Red Bull and Embassy Regal then gaffer tape who’s left of your neighbours to the nearest lamp post and let rip..  Go to www.guitarherometallica.com

My personal favourite is to close the southside of Hyde Park for a grass skiing tournament – seriously – it could kick start the interest in this excellent eccentrics pass time. There’s enough of us left in August in Chelsea to do it justice.

Grass skiing in Hyde Park?