Back to Brighton

Back in the depths of the miserable winter we booked a couple of nights in Brighton during the summer half term break to give ourselves something to look forward to - at least we hoped so, as there was no telling when things would be likely to reopen. Fortunately the gamble paid off, as hotels were allowed to reopen for leisure travel two weeks ago. 

We hit very lucky with the weather, apart from a couple of hours on Wednesday afternoon when it clouded over and tried (but mostly failed) to rain. The journey down wasn't fun. We have been to Brighton quite a few times, but always by train. This time we decided to drive, which meant the M25 (London orbital) motorway, which is always a bit of a gamble. There was a lot of traffic and what should have taken just over two hours took nearly four, with one short stop for coffee and something to eat. When we arrived we got stuck in more traffic near the sea front, and then struggled to find a parking space in the hotel car park.  We finally made it to the beach and did all the  proper seaside things - sitting on the beach watching the sea and enjoying the sun, strolling on the pier, eating ice creams and so on - then went out to a Greek restaurant for dinner in the evening.

Monday had been a public holiday, and when we arrived on Tuesday the beach was still very busy, with most people apparently behaving as if the pandemic was a thing of the past. The number of cases has gone up quite a bit over the last week and I can see why - however, it seems mostly to be spreading among younger, unvaccinated (or partially vaccinated) people, and so far isn't causing hospitalisations to rise too much. Whether it will stay that way is hard to tell. The new "delta" variant is driving faster transmission, but the vaccines seem to be working against it, so for the next month or two it looks as though we will be in a race between the virus and the vaccines to get to herd immunity. Fortunately vaccine take up is very high here - over 75% of adults so far has had at least one dose, and it hasn't been offered to under 30s yet. 

On Wednesday morning we walked a couple of miles along the sea front to Brighton marina, which we had never visited before. There are a lot of shops, bars and restaurants, and lots of sea front apartments. An old school friend of mine lives in Brighton, and she managed to take a break from work and meet us at a cafe for lunch. I haven't seen her properly for over 40 years, apart from briefly at a school reunion, so it was lovely to have the chance to catch up. 

After lunch we walked back, then played a game of pirate themed mini golf, which M won despite TG managing a couple of holes in one. TG, who is usually fairly cautious about the more adventurous fairground and theme park rides, decided that a trip to Brighton was not complete without a ride on the pier and surprised me by deciding that we should try out the Air Race which billed itself as an opportunity to experience "mid-air fighter pilot thrills". M does not do rides because of his back issues - and in any case can think of few things he would like less! - sat and relaxed on the pier while we queued and were then tossed and spun around for a while. Fortunately I *do* like roller coasters and so on, although I was probably at least double the age of anyone else daft enough to go on it! 

After being flung around we decided a trip back to the same ice cream stall as the day before was called for. Mine was vegan ginger nut, TG had mint choc chip and M had his usual plain vanilla. After all the walking we collapsed in our hotel room for a while, then went out to eat chicken at Nandos - vegan "chicken" for me and the real thing for the others. 

We had some supermarket club card vouchers to spend so had used those to book tickets for the Sea Life Centre for Thursday morning. We have been to Sea Life at Weymouth many times - all the girls went through stages of deciding that it was a not-to-be-missed holiday ritual - but never to Brighton. I had no idea that it was the latest reincarnation of what was originally a Victorian aquarium, complete with mock Gothic architecture. Combined with 21st century lighting effects it was quite spectacular. 

Afterwards we decided we should have another stroll along the pier. TG was then seduced by the fact that there were no queues for the end of the pier rides and asked if we could go on Air Race again. We then started dithering between Air Race and the Crazy Mouse coaster, so ended up going on both. Before leaving for home we bought fish and chips to eat on the beach - another of those things that just has to be done! On the way back the M25 was jammed up again and it took us four hours to get home. Lesson learned - we will stick to the train in future. All in all it was a short break but a good one, and although we got home tired from walking and the long drive, it recharged both physical and mental batteries.