Rye and Hastings

Taking advantage of our location, we traveled by train to the nearby town of Rye. Cobbled streets, timber-framed buildings, narrow doorways, rustic pubs and plenty of ye olde tourist shoppes, Rye was quaint and twee but also very pleasant. 

We initially wandered lost, confused by google maps, but soon found the cosy Cobbles Tearooms, where we ate scones, spongecake, and drank caffeinated beverages. I looked out for Miss Marple but couldn't see her.

This B n B looked great.

Twee.

Ye Olde.

A good ol' patriotic window display. Is "Tudor Edwards" the author's real name? Also note the soldier's resemblance to Thatcher on the cover of 'When the Fighting is Over'.

The town of Rye was perched on a hill overlooking a large expanse of green parkland, including a very good children's playground, and looked further out to the sea. We naively thought we could walk down and swim in the visible river but turned out to be very much an industrial zone with steep, rough concrete banks and many fishing trawlers. The path leading down from the town however was picturesque.

Back up, we wandered to this old tower, adjacent to an ice cream shop.

More pretty lanes leading down.

Colonic irrigation place.

Near the old castle the houses were clad in roof tiles.

Inside the castle, we found another man trap.

A peculiar display in the castle presented an AV depiction of life in the women's prison. The initial confrontation with the mannequin was disconcerting.

I enjoyed a pint of local ale from the Ypres Tavern.

New depths of twee.

Down from the castle Rye actually had a half decent record shop. There I found the following cheap 12" singles that I'd been lazily keeping an eye out for for some time:

Heading back we stopped at St Leonards, Hastings, and walked to the seaside. St Leonards is gentrifying, as evidenced by boutique t-shirt stores and fusion cafe-restaurants, but isn't there yet, as evidenced by the many, many charity shops, the numerous broken windows, and down and outs limping about the town. I loved it.

We all loved St Leonards so much that I took the children back there the next day. Further encouraging the return was the weather which was the hottest day we'd yet had. The rocks are not easy to walk barefoot on but once in the water it gives way to pebbles and eventually a kind of sand, so we all waded out and swam.

Up on the promenade was a cafe selling decent coffee, very slowly made, and fried fish sandwiches. Something very enticing about these benches built into the wall.

We found and caught a jellyfish.

Seaside

We had a rare opportunity to take an unencumbered trip to the seaside, a delight. We caught the train to the capital, and headed straight to the London Review Bookshop, surely one of the finest bookstores in the world. This joined a rather long list of outstanding bookshops we'd visited on this journey, from Blackwells to Scarthin, and many secondhand stores. The LRB shop has a fine cafe, and we spent a number of hours here.

Wandering north to the station, we saw a former residence of Bertrand Russell.

The neighbourhood is filled with English language students and was very busy, but the squares are pleasant. 

Grayson Perry was doing something in this place.

And Lenin lived here once.

Although Queen Victoria didn't live here.

Disembarking the train at Brighton, our seaside destination, we strolled down the main street. The sea air and change in scenery was most pleasant.

We once lived in Brighton and were always fond of the colourful terraces on streets leading down to the sea.

We both once worked at the Hand in Hand, a charming old pub. I had a grand time befriending the locals, drinking the Kemptown ales brewed upstairs, with DJ Tropical Breeze making an early appearance banging out tapes of reggae. Best of the locals was a blind septuagenarian dealer in maritime antiques, and we became good pals. He took me to jazz shows while I took him to amateur electronica performances, where I drunkenly played bleeps on a Dell laptop. RIP ol' George. 

Brighton always had a skanky side. Is that asbestos drooping out of the window?

I used to stroll this way home after shifts at the pub.

We bought fish n' chips and sat on the rocks.

A strange substation of some kind for the novelty seaside railway.

Shrubs growing out of the walls.

Not the Abbey Road.