Not been out and about much lately, other than to the shops and for garden supplies. I’ve been behaving like an utter bloke, feeling sorry for myself with a mere cold. It hung around for a couple of weeks, off and on, forcing me to cancel a day at the hobby. On one of the ‘off’ days, however, we treated ourselves to a familiar jaunt to Eastbourne via Birling Gap and Beachy Head. The day was fine and breezy, and the views from Beachy Head were vast, from Dungeness in the East to Selsey Bill in the West. After lunch we took a short stroll along the front and down the pier. The bedding displays on the prom were very good, using a few subjects I didn’t recognise, along with the more familiar nicotianas, cannas and antirrhinums - and a welcome absence of marigolds!
Lunch at our usual chain chippie was good enough, but service was less impressive, and I fear this was because of a higher British component in the waiter force than last time. There is a ‘wait here to be seated’ sign out on the pavement, and we stood there like lemons while the staff fannied about inside. One elderly gent behind us in the queue was not impressed: ‘It’s not a restaurant, it’s a bleedin’ fish & chip shop!’ We were eventually offered a seat next to the chiottes when I forced the pace, and moved ourselves to a better spot. Still, our plaice and chips were as good as usual.
As I write, we’ve just passed Durham cathedral and the peculiar Angel of the North on our way to a short stay in Edinburgh. Martyn is treating me to the trip as a birthday present, and managed to get a good deal on first class train tickets. The ex-Virgin rolling stock is showing its age. We abandoned our reserved seats because mine wouldn’t fix in the upright position. I found a block of four unreserved in the next carriage, so we moved. And the recline mechanism on one of the seats was bust as well. The train manager’s attitude when I mentioned it was ‘well, a lot of them are broken’. Welcome to Grayling railways, now tendenciously rebranded LNER.
No comments:
Post a Comment