Monday 21st Sept 2009

Woke up at 5am which sounds early but you must remember we are in bed at 9am. So if you came you would have found us sat under the stars drinking tea, smoking and listening to the owls in the distance. Fox came by and I snapped a couple of photos. He tried to snap a rabbit but it was too fast for him.

The girls got up around 7.30 and we had breakfast of raisin toast and crumpets spread with Normandy butter (it is a very salty butter with large sea salt crystals...delicious!) we had a lazy morning before heading off to Brighton in the afternoon. Brighton is the San Francisco of the UK and is a very cosmopolitan place. Clean and tidy with huge white seafront houses that run to the coast in a sequence of squares. I could live there.

We had dinner at an Italian restaurant ...especially enjoyed the ‘Bagna Cauda’ which is basically an anchovy sauce you dip things in...garlic bread is especially nice. Then went to meet up with an old pal of Nick’s which was entertaining as he regaled us with stories from Nick’s past. We didn’t get to bed till 11.30pm...shocking! Slept well but still woke up at 5.30am must be an inbuilt clock or something.

Tuesday 22nd Sept 2009

Went to the village of Battle (site of Norman / Saxon battle in 1066) and then onto Rye (via a picnic stop at Winchelsea.) Rye was a fishing village on the coast a few hundred years ago but due to silt deposits has now ended up a couple of miles inland. Picturesque type of place.
In the evening a large hornet came into the kitchen but we managed to capture it in a glass and let it outside. Save or slay vote was close but as I caught it I chose to save.