Brighton

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, when I was 8 or possibly 9 (but not 10 because we'd gone to Australia by then) we went on a family day trip to Brighton.  While we were there Tony and someone else (although I don't know who the someone else was, nor, indeed, how many someone elses there were) went out to play in the sea with my beach ball.  Alas, the tide or the current caught my beach ball and took it away and the people playing in the sea were unable to retrieve it.  I was somewhat aggrieved by this!  Stella assured me that the beach ball would be fine.  It was making its way to France to have a holiday with a little French girl.

So when Freyja suggested that we spend the Sunday of the long weekend in Brighton I thought this might be a good opportunity to see if my beach ball had returned from its holiday in France!

We went on the train.  We managed to get super cheap tickets for the four of us and we expected the roads to be busy so it seemed like the sensible option.  Mind you - the train was absolutely packed.  I'm not sure you could have fitted any more people onto the platform at London Bridge station!  But it is a really pretty train trip and it didn't really matter that we weren't all sat together.  The sun shone and people were mostly in an equally sunny mood.

Lunch first when we got there. And then off to a bit of an explore.  I hadn't been to Brighton since I was 9 or so.  I'm not sure why.  I don't think it can really have been because I was traumatised by the loss of my beach ball.  I suppose it's just not very handy from Sheffield.  It's a lovely place to visit. The little shopping lanes are lovely and have interesting shops in them.  We went for a ride on the little electric train and then walked back from the marina. We had ice creams. We pottered about. Then we caught the train back to London and Freyja and Simon went to a barbecue and The Builder and I went back to the Premier Inn and had dinner there.

Oh - and we found my ball.  Well, we found *a* ball.  I don't suppose it really was my ball waiting for me for nearly 50 years.  And I don't recall my ball having trains and tractors all over it.  We found it in a shop and immediately thought of Cally!

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