A Day out on Brighton Pier

The last few days of my annual leave and we decided to visit Brighton Pier. It's only a half an hours drive away and we always sort of forget it's there!

We parked up near Kemptown where the all day charge is £5 (unlike on the seafront where it's £15) and walked down to the sea via flea markets and charity shops, browsing as we went. Lots of taxidermy but none created such a desire to own them as the moose head I'd seen in Lewes the day before (I now have a serious moose head obsession - I think the hallway needs a moose head)

 After a nice lunch in a Kemptown cafe/restaurant (lovely plaice and chips for me, disappointing burger for DD, cheese sandwich for DH ...maybe wine...yes yes there was wine!) we wandered down to the pier.

Don't Blink

 Brighton pier is free to walk on, and there are free deckchairs too. So on a warm or sunny  day (it wasn't cold but neither was it sunny on the day we visited) it's a great cheap way to 'people watch'. There are all the usual seaside fun things to do, buy food (whelks, cockles, prawns etc or donuts, waffles, frozen yoghurt with fruit, rock) or buy souvenirs (sunglasses, jewellery, temporary tattoos, cuddly toys) There are stalls to win things (tiny crap cuddly toys unless you win 1000 times!) by flinging balls at cans or shooting arrows from a bow, or even as easy as hooking a duck.

 There are amusements, all the usual fun of the fair, fortune telling machines, coin shove games, air hockey (including a new one that throws load of pucks onto the table at once! It looked awesome!), slot machines, shooting and driving games.

 There are places to have your picture taken peeping through comedy pictures, and then, finally, at the far end, the fun fair rides.

I can't praise Brighton Pier highly enough. The rides are great fun and a wrist band for UNLIMITED rides is only £15 - after 4 rides the rest are 'free' - The rides are priced by 'token' - a token is £1 and the number of tokens varies but to ride all of the adult thrill rides would cost £42 in tokens.

DD and I got wristbands and were suitably terrified on the Crazy Mouse (each corner looks like you will be flung into the sea), looped the loop on the Turbo Coaster, DD nearly wet herself in terror on the Horror Hotel, but no one would have noticed as we had wet backsides from the Wild River log flume! We rode the dodgems (ace driving by me obviously) and had several rides on the amazingly fun Galactica, we even had a ride on the golden horses of the Carousel.

We were really impressed with the rides and the price, lots more choice and cheaper than Butlins (our next closest 'theme park' style location. We are already planning a full day there to make use of the unlimited rides.

DD finished off the trip with a waffle.... on a stick.

The great British seaside day out wins!

They're Changing Guard at Buckingham Palace...

They're changing guard at Buckingham Palace -
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
Alice is marrying one of the guard.
"A soldier's life is terrible hard,"
                                                                    Says Alice.

We went to London on Saturday, as we live on the coast it's up for us, not down, and we are neither called Christopher, nor Alice..I'm not sure where this is going except I recited this poem to DD when we were at Buckingham Palace, I feel if when you see this

and don't recite that perfect poem by A.A. Milne you are wasting everyone's time.

We were not in London to visit the Queen though, nor a little mouse under her chair. We were there to meet up with the simply marvelous totally barking authors that I met up with back in January but this time DD was coming along too.

First I went to John Lewis with £200 worth of vouchers that I'd won online burning the proverbial hole in my pocket. After an hour of um-ing and ahhh-ing and with help from DD I settled on a lovely chiffon dress in black, with a butterfly motif (£105 !! *faints*) and a White Stuff reversible cotton skirt with a bird patterm (£45) I also stocked up on 'my smell' (as DD calls it) Clarins Dynamisante (£32)

Then it was a rush to the pub, to meet for Lunch. We were late of course. We met at the Mayflower, the pub was charming, and after a brief confusion where I was upstairs and alone with Dd and a bottle of wine while everone one else was downstairs, we settled down to chatting about all sorts of odd things, books, food, women, sex, cats, watches...sometimes several from that list at once.

The food was delicious. The waitress put up with our happy mildly tipsy behaviour. No one danced on the table, or got naked, though Andy and Tony downed shots of Tabasco sauce to impress us. We were suitably impressed...and a little bit worried!

All in all the meet up was lovely (well I enjoyed it - I do hope the others did!) DD has declared all authors (but especially Andy Stanton and Anthony McGowan) 'barking' ... after the Tabasco affair I fear she has a point.

Emily, Tony, TM, DD

Sally, Andy and Jane

Later we walked back from the tube via Green Park and Buckingham Palace.

What a super day!

Camp Bestival, or 'turning it off and on again'

Today in the news there was talking of the arrogance of the west (no arguments there) about sleep (oh, as you were...sleep eh?) and how sleep is important

I can see the parents nodding at the back, or maybe nodding off at the back. Yes they mumble, sleep is important, and I'm not getting any (no nor any of that either - I'm too tired)

Well I'm here to tell you exciting news!

Camping resets your body clock! Yes yes it does - the BBC wrote about it here 

Gratuitous Picture of Eton Mess served at Camp Bestival

Camping can be a great way to reboot, to 'switch yourself off and on again' as it were. Getting up with the light, snoozing in the sun if you get sleepy in the daytime, eating when hungry, going to bed when tired... And if you are panicking that you can't because ... you have kids and camping with kids is too stressful (I wrote about that here) then more good news!

Camp Bestival still has tickets and it's a festival designed for families, for children, for parents, even for babies! yes loyal reader a festival for all! (they don't mind if you are single, or even alone either, more the merrier, pile on in)

Camp Bestival has security to keep you safe and return lost kids, it has bars for relaxing grown ups and all kinds of free activities to keep small ones entertained, from clay modelling to dance schools. It has a quiet chill out baby tent, for snoozing babes, and breastfeeding mums (and bottle feeding mums and dads too of course!)

It has bouncy castles, jousting (yes real actual jousting!) circuses, dressing up with a cat walk (unleash your inner 'silly'!) lots of shops selling fun things, clothes, bubbles, wigs, food, hats...

This year Rob and Josie have been working on a Teen Arena so that those annoying lovely teens don't feel left out and can have some fun of their own, I know DD isexcited about this as we did start to feel she was getting too old for some of the kids stuff while not quite old enough for the grown up stuff.

I'm going this year as a Camp Bestival Official Blogger and I'm taking my brother and his family along to their FIRST festival! I can't wait to show them the joy of Camp Bestival.

Good gracious I failed to mention the MUSIC! It's a festival so of course there is music, dancing, Mr Tumble for the little ones, Chas and Dave for those older...I've been told to listen out for The Wedding Present, ... look at the whole line up here.

So? Are you coming? Grab a tent, some bubbles and some glow sticks, I'll save you a pitching spot...