I'm home from a few days in Brighton and still recovering - but it's been wonderful to be feeling 32 for a couple of days. My niece (M, a very grown-up seventeen) had never been before and I so wanted to show her the lanes, lovely restaurants and have a few hours on the beach/pier and just looking out at the sea. Such an incredible city - and her brother moves to start uni there in just over a month.
We were given a ton of recommendations - my friend Chris wrote and gave me six essential Brighton places to visit...
... plus others recommended cake shops (Cloud 9 which sadly we missed) and lots of restaurants. My favourite meal was probably in Jamie's Italian, where I had the best scallops I've ever tasted. Melt in the mouth doesn't describe it! Although chips on the pier has a very special charm to it, and I got my order of freshly cooked doughnuts in; we ate them over a movie in bed back at the hotel which was perfect. I highly recommend Walking on Sunshine as the happiest movie I've ever seen!
Visiting Whirligig (classic toys; many were traditional wooden and so beautifully made, you wanted one of each) was an absolute joy to visit, as was the aquarium (I got a bit photo happy in there) and we finished day two in VIPizza which was such a treat - incredible sour dough base, lovely little family place.
Checklist we managed to cover:
Fresh doughnuts
Chips with a sea view
Waffles for breakfast at Fentons - they also had the best slush puppies we've ever had.
Passable hotel (great bed, great location, terrible bathroom)
Walked the pier, watched the rides, agreed not to go on any!
Sat on the beach until we were cold (British weather!)
Finally we picked up a Bagelman lunch for the train home - I need to buy sour cream for the paprika bites I bought back with me. M had a long journey after she dropped me off - back down to Dorset for a week of camping, although she'll be back up with my sister in a couple of weeks as part of my birthday celebrations. More on that later...
Anyway, overall my energy levels lasted well for two straight days of being relatively busy - the second day my phone recorded over 12,000 steps, which I haven't done in months. I came home shattered yesterday; but revitalised and it gives me hope for seeing P&J tomorrow for lunch and cake (cannot wait - if there's one link you click here, make it that one) in London - plus visiting friends in Milton Keynes in a couple of weeks... in part for a new tattoo!
This is our little beauty and H has sketched out the way we plan to have the shape and lettering. She is from a Japanese poetry book we stumbled across, and have a tattooist with a fabulous style booked. Three of us are having the same - the only thing we're changing is the 'fall' to 'autumn' and anglicizing the spelling of colors/colours.
Other plans for my birthday week include a family dinner for ten - I'm still yet to decide where - plus various other dinners with friends and having my eyebrows tattooed back in as well. My diary for August is filling up fast which is both lovely and a bit intimidating. My friends and family are all wonderful and will understand any short-notice rescheduling, but I hope to be able to fit everything in with mindfulness and careful spoon-allocation.
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