Brighton

30th April - Tuesday

 Airing one's laundry in public?

 A right royal pavilion

 At last, a beach

 Taking the seaside air

 A stroll along the pier

 Brighton Beach

 Now, which game will I play first?

 Ahoy, me hearties

 Free deck chairs!

Our home away from home

A proper breakfast – with proper coffee!!! – at last; full English with eggs, bacon, sauté potatoes, mushrooms and toast for Sir. The previous night, much to the wonderment of the concierge, we had booked transport to take us to the Avis depot at Heathrow to collect our hire car. The driver this morning also couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t collect the car in London – something to do with the traffic perhaps??? The Avis lady was very nice about explaining that there wasn’t a car of the type we had already paid for ready for collection; we could have an upgrade for just an extra £10 per day and take the car immediately, otherwise we could wait for a Renault Megane to be washed. We waited for a freshly washed Renault.


TomTom (aka Doris) really excelled herself today, especially as she had never been to England before. We had no problems leaving the Heathrow area and getting onto the motorway for the drive to Brighton and taking us right to the door of the bed and breakfast we had booked this morning. Brightside is just what we were hoping for, with a large bedroom and a separate shower room, all pink and flowery into the bargain.

With the aid of a map, and Doris, we had no trouble getting into the centre of Brighton and finding a car park. First stop was a Vodaphone shop to buy a new Sim card – Lycamobile will go where it deserves to go: the garbage can! Then it was a walk in the wrong direction away from the Royal Pavilion before a nice local put us right. We walked back past the clock tower which was decorated with old shirts as an “art installation.” Then we saw the Royal Pavilion. What an amazing structure George IV built – Indian style architecture on the outside and Chinoiserie (Chinese) decoration on the inside. The banquet and music rooms had the most amazing chandeliers, it was a pity we weren’t allowed to take photographs inside. The whole ground floor was decorated in red and gold, with fake bamboo and dragon after dragon.

After leaving the Pavilion, we headed for the beach and Brighton Pier. Les and Cat enjoyed a quiet time sitting and watching the water, although were puzzled at the large number of stalls selling buckets and spades. The pebbles were very large, very loose and very steep – very difficult to walk on. The Brighton Pier was everything we expected a British pier to be – souvenir shops, junk food shops two huge buildings chock a block full of poker machines, pinball machines and other games designed to reduce the coins in one’s pocket, plenty of rides to keep Cat amused and a sideshow alley complete with rides. Having been told that the best fish and chips to be had could be bought on the pier, we decided this would make a good early evening meal. We are not anticipating our next feed of fish and chips!

The weather today has been clear and sunny, warm in the sun, but coat weather otherwise. I hope I don’t require a blood transfusion tonight.