Week 3 - Brighton Daytrip

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Monday 26th February

I awoke feeling somewhat shabby on this day. Emma ventured down to The Pavement for some coffee and internet early on and I met her there for lunch. We bought some bike accessories on ebay and saved a bit on what they would have cost over here in the shops. We cheffed up some chicken and vegetable lasagne (well, I washed the dishes, Em was in charge of the cooking) which went down well. Meet the landlord and pester him about the shoddy TV reception we’re getting here, even after spending £20 on a set of power bunny ears!

Hopefully we won’t have to hunt for the elusive sweet spot on the floor where the channel looks watchable for much longer. He probably thinks we’re the tenants from hell now he’s hearing this after just having the shower replaced for us. Oh well he’s got to earn his £1000 per month I say! 😊


Tuesday 27th February

Benri’s Birthday!! Give him a $100 towards his travel fund (it was only later would I discover he was to spend it on food and alcohol for his party..) and give him a happy 22nd whilst he was at Mums having dinner with the rest of the clan.
I headed down to the café for some cappo and internet to search for jobs and check emails for a couple of hours and then rode started riding to Oxford Circus to meet Emma in Soho for a look around. Half way there whilst riding in the pouring rain I got the call that she was in Clapham, not Soho Doh!

While I was around Victoria Station (which, I think, was in the movie Mission Impossible) I decided to take a few snaps until a guard came over and told me to stop. They take their security pretty seriously at the moment over here. Maybe I really need to have a shave? Outside, Victoria Station were 2 theatres, one showing Billy Elliot and the other, Wicked. We’d heard some high praise for Wicked from Nat who’d seen the play before, so I decided to grab a couple of cheap £15 tickets for the show that night. They still had a few seats left so we were to sit right next to the £40 seats. (In the intermission we may have lost our way back from the restrooms and migrated stage-wards into a couple of said £40 seats, which were previously vacant).

I met Em at the Oxford Circus tube exit and after a coffee we went for a quick walk down Carnaby Street and checked out some of the trendy little shops and pubs (such as the Shakespeare’s Head) selling various goods, including a tea shop, which Emma fell in love with. They had every tea you could think of, you could even make your own upstairs, where they provided you with all the raw ingredients and a rough guide on how and what to mix.

Time was running short so we started the long journey on foot down through the crowded Oxford Street, past Bond Street, down Park Lane, ending up near the Victoria Street Station and the Apollo Victoria theatre. Park Lane (which runs along one of the boundaries of Hyde Park) had a lot of posh car dealerships including BMW, Mini, TVR and Aston Martin, and a lot of posh hotels including the London Hilton and The Dorchester and a lot of posh people walking around with suits, some with top hats.

We ended up getting to the theatre and in our seats about 20 secs after the band had just started, just in time! Wicked definitely lived up to it’s name. It would have had to be the best play I’ve ever seen. The sets, the props, costumes, story and cast were all top notch. It was a new play about the Wicked witches of Oz set before, during and after the original story, portraying their side of the story whilst weaving in well with the original story. A standing ovation at the end showed that everyone else was pretty impressed as well - kids and adults (you would have loved it Mum).


Wednesday 28th February

I mustn’t have been able to find my diary today …..or I did nothing. One of the two.


Thursday 1st March

After the usual café thing in the morning I jumped on me bike to try to organise a gate key for our undercover parking spot for the Pug. Was told to go to Lambeth Housing and pay a whopping £25 for the key (must be some key) but upon arriving, are steered to an office in Streatham, which is about 5kms away. After looking for the office for about 20 mins I finally found “Lambeth Contact” which although wasn’t the name the Lambeth Housing bird had given me, seemed to fit the description. Bad news was that it closed early today, 15 minutes earlier. Looks like it’ll have to be a tomorrow job now.

Em had a class today somewhere miles from Clapham even after specifically asking for local classes, she’s getting a bit tired of travelling an hour on the tube every morning to get to work. She does report this class was not as bad as the first one, however they were still pretty unruly compared to the relative angels she had in Tom Price.


Friday 2nd March

While our shower at home is being replaced with a “power shower” and Em is off teaching, I pedal off to Streatham again to get this damn key sorted out. After waiting a while, they tell me that I have to go to a Brixton office to pay for the key, then get the receipt and take it back to the Clapham office. Bloody timewasters!!

One of Cambo’s work mates came over later on for a few drinks and we settled in for the night with the DVD “Scarface”. I didn’t know it was such a brutal movie, especially the chainsaw scene!


Saturday 3rd March

Our first day trip in the Pug!! We jumped on the A23 and headed down to Brighton to relax a bit and escape the hustle and bustle of London. The Pug performed well, cruising very smoothly past the green grassy hills at 85 mph down the motorway and before we knew it we were there. It’s only about 50 miles south of London on the coast and has a relaxed feel to it similar to Fremantle.

After walking around the Royal Gardens for a bit we stepped inside the lavish and unusually designed Royal Pavilion. This was the home of Prince Regent (later King George IV) in the 18th century and the venue of his decadent weekend parties he used to hold. Walking around the place with an audio tour was very interesting, and learnt that his wait staff used secret hidden doors to move around the Palace without being seen too much. They would have been busy as one of the menus on display showed over 100 dishes with 39 entrees for one banquet. No, Prince Regent would not have been a good spokesperson for Weight Watchers.

The whole palace was designed in an Oriental style after the prince saw pictures he liked in a book. Wood carved to resemble bamboo, luxurious and intricate carpets and wall papers, snakes wrapping around columns and dragons holding up massive chandeliers with their claws were some of the style’s features. The last main room on the tour was the music room, where the parties used to end up for the night. Looking up revealed a massive gilded dome (which had survived a few disasters in its time including a fire and a hurricane) and a pipe organ was built into the side of the massive room. After we’d done the tour we headed upstairs to have a scone with jam and cream and a coffee (sorry, not into tea much) which felt rather aristocratic. Tally ho, pip pip, wot, I say, good show ol’ chap.

From the palace we had a leisurely walk up the high street checking out the odd shop, and found a nice food store with nice fresh fruit, nuts, sweets and a nice selection of chillis. I had to buy a pack of Naga Bih Jolokia chillis, advertised as the worlds hottest at a Scoville Rating of 855,000 (to put that into perspective your average Jalapeño is about 3000) and Em went sick purchasing a armful of various nuts.

We then strolled down to the pebbled beach where little food and souvenir shops lined the walkway. It was good to see the sea again, even if it was a bit browner and more tumultuous than the Perth beaches. We had to sample the fish n chips along here (as you do) and found the Jaws Fish Bar run by a pair of Fish Nazi’s (you don’t want to forget your number here).

Last on the list was the famous Brighton Pier, full of pokies and electronic games, a bit like a very long Timezone. Walking through the gaming area to the end brought us out to the rides area at the end of the pier, with its roller coasters and carousels. The chilling wind was howling now and Em was finding it hard to keep warm even with about 3 layers of clothes on. After getting “married” and nearly being decapitated by a flying air hockey puck we walked back through and headed back to the Pug. Parking for the 7 hours was a bargain at only £12 /end sarcasm/. I decided I would drive home tackling England’s roads for the first time. It seemed everyone was trying to head back to London at the same time as it took about 30 minutes just to get out of Brighton. Me clutch leg got a good workout. Then half way down the motorway, an accident slowed traffic to a crawl again for miles. It took just over an hour to get there, but over 2 to get back. Oh well, a good time was had by all.


Sunday 4th March

After a late start to the day we headed off on the pushies, destination - Hyde Park. Even though the weather was fairly miserable (newly aquired waterproof jackets came in handy) there was still quite a gathering of people at Speakers Corner in the park. For many, many years now, anyone with an opinion about anything is free to jump up onto a chair or box, get it off their chest without fear of reprisal (maybe the odd heckle though). The more popular guys (the Iraq War was a hot topic) had a crowd of about 20 people surrounding them. Not bad for a cold, wet day.

From there we bunkered down in a Corpo café to finish blogging with a huge cup of coffee the size of a bowl of soup. Heading home in the dark, we pass through Hyde Park again and the Corner still has some die hard debaters going for it.

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