Blogs from Hastings, East Sussex, England, United Kingdom, Europe

‘…largest beach-based fleet in Britain,’ boasts the information sign. With no natural harbour since The Great Storm of 1287, trawlermen have learnt to moor their vessels on the beach. They return laden with turbot, monkfish, mackerel and more, to face a purposeful collision with the shore. Bearded men, clad in oilskins, slide skis under the hulls, simultaneously attaching winch cables. The boats lurch, listing violently, but they never topple. Welcome to my hometown of Hastings in southeast England. Chip-fed gulls wheel overhead, swooping down and adopting octogenarian posture against an onshore gale. Behind me, the East Hill Victorian funicular (Britain’s steepest) has now ceased to ply up its eroded cliff section. Instead, the red carriages shelter behind shutters - away from the icy, snow-filled gusts - and the track is refurbished in anticipation of summer tourists. ... read more

Wow, I realize that it has been a long time since I posted. However, I made no promises when I started this! I need to go back to over a month ago - my sister arrived on Sept 10. That was really exciting for me! I picked her up at the airport and dropper her at our older brother’s, where she was going to spend the weekend getting over jet lag. I drove over on Saturday and then she and I took the tube into London. We had made plans to tour the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace since they are only open during August and September. We knew it wouldn’t take all day, so we had been searching for something else to do. While trying to find a gluten-free place to have lunch (my sister ... read more

Our third night away from home we spent at our lodging for four nights, Combe Haven Holiday Park, in historic Hastings. We lived in very nice little mobile homes, fitted with kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, heaters, living rooms etc. Each home had a teacher supervisor living with the students. The holiday park was great too, but we had little time to enjoy all the facilities because of the packed program. We went shopping to a great supermarket called Sainsbury's and bought all the food we needed and more. I lived in the "boy" house where we had spaghetti, Chinese, pizza, cake, chocolate, sausage and more to eat (not all at one time). ... read more

Hello again, we've been out playing the tourist again. Must say lucky with the weather, the sun has been out the last couple of days. So much to see and do, so little time, and only four days left before the epic long-haul flight home. Can't say I'm looking forward to it. Anyway, enough waffling, on with the show, here's some more pics to check out. :-)... read more

So, nearly ready... Now everything has started to come together I'm starting to find myself worrying a lot about things going terribly wrong. I suppose only now has it really started to feel 'real' - what with one thing and another happening to frustrate our plans I'd almost sort of started to think in my mind that it wasn't going to happen. Owen is more excited than I am I think, I was more excited before but now I'm starting to think of all the things that are going wrong. I'm hoping it will pass once I get started! To date, the things that have held me up: My grandmother has had yet more heart palpitations and been sent into hospital. She's out again now but very frail. My grandfather has been having bleeding from ... read more

We're just coming down to the last things to do. Owen needs to buy a hat, and there's a few bits and pieces I might want to buy clothes-wise, but since they aren't essential I probably won't. We need to finish packing up and transporting stuff over to my parents' house, inform a few people of change of address, photocopy the last of the important documents and take photos of our stuff where there aren't receipts, and go to the post office and post off our copies of and get a redirection order. And phone ahead to the first campsite to book, because just turning up and finding they were booked up would be a pain. Just to let people know, Owen's blog can be found here... read more

Saturday, February 16th, 2008: We had a bit of an adventure getting down to Hastings today. Dad's flight got in late this morning, then there was a problem with the Picadilly Line, so he had to take the Heathrow Express, which put him at Paddington. Well, the train left from London Bridge, and with the little distractions and bumps in the road, he got there just in time for us to see the train pull away from the station. We eventually got one from Victoria towards Brighton, but this apparently was not the best train to be on...so we changed at East Croydon and got a direct from there to Hastings. Made it in at about 4:30. Then, the info desk at the train station had no maps, so we wandered around the town, eventually finding ... read more