A wonderful weekend

It's very late on Sunday night – 1:40am on Monday morning, really – but I'm so happy that I must at least start recording this wonderful day before I go to sleep. I hardly know where to start, because yesterday I was so excited at the prospect of regaling you with our Brighton (mis)adventures, but tonight I am desperate to convey the specialness of today! However, chronological order wins out, so I'll pick up from when we left the public library yesterday. By the way, I'm writing this in our new room at the guest house – we were moved downstairs on Saturday morning because our original room was already booked. This is our last night here. Tomorrow night we should be in our new home, fingers crossed (there is the slight possibility that the OzForex transfers won't have gone through yet, in which case we won't be able to pay the advance rent and may have to sleep in the car).

On Saturday afternoon, we left the library, and, after a short interlude in a “Save the Children” op shop where we bought three books (The Husband, The Last Juror, and Enigma), we set off for Brighton. Beside the highway, the countryside was, as usual, lush, green, hilly, and smattered with quaint buildings. After probably half an hour, we arrived in Brighton. We drove past a large park filled with couples and groups soaking up the sunlight, and lawn bowls players dressed in white. There were streets full of near-identical houses, tall and thin and standing close together, interesting shops such as “Tattooing at Gunpoint”, and a few particularly impressive structures such as those built by royalty a long time ago. We then reached the esplanade, and for ease of my writing and your reading of this, I'll use dot points to share some of the sights with you:

- The ocean (no surf) and large pebbles where sand should rightfully be
- THOUSANDS of people – lying on the beach, walking on the “rock dunes”, waiting to cross the street, strolling along the footpath, riding bikes, waving to my camera (okay, not thousands; only two were doing that last one)
- Lots of tanned skin on show, and bright clothing
- Cars parked in every available parking space, and lots of unavailable/ nonexistent ones too
- A man standing at the boot of his car, feeding his two dogs from silver dishes
- A elderly man and woman sitting on their folding chairs on the footpath, right in front of their car's bonnet, watching the sea
- A guy travelling in a moving vehicle, which at least 80% of his body was outside of
- A small tent pitched on the dunes
- A little tourist train carrying beach goers along a track between the street and the rocky sand
- Hundreds of little change huts lining the beach for a km or so
- A large pond just for sailboarders

We drove up and back along the main section of the beachfront, and then continued further and found a much quieter road in an industrial area, where we saw some shipping container yards, a waste facility, and piers entirely covered in bright green moss. On our way back along this road, we were driving past a section with a high stone wall, so we decided to stop and have a look at the beach, and pulled up beside a gap in the wall that housed a grate with rubbish shoved into it. We jumped up onto a ledge and peered over it at the beach, where there were more people lying around under umbrellas and such. I was about to take some photos of this view, looking at my camera rather than the “real life” scene, when suddenly Ben said “is that guy nude?”!!! The man in question was batting a ball around with a fully-clothed woman, and he was indeed nude. In fact – we suddenly realised – so were MOST people in sight!!! We put the camera away in a hurry and departed the unofficial nudist beach in an even bigger hurry, laughing rather hysterically. Thank goodness everyone was a fair distance away and thank goodness for my poor eyesight!!!!! :D

That night we had tea at a Frankie and Benny's restaurant in Crawley – pizza, spicy onion rings, and a fruit smoothie.

This morning we set off for the meeting, which was 13 miles away in a town called Horsham. We were the first to arrive, which was fortunate, as by some miscommunication we hadn't been expected! This was all quickly sorted, and a special hour followed. More details perhaps in future emails for those interested! It did turn out that others there had heard about our impending arrival. :)

Afterwards, we were invited out for lunch by a couple called Terry and Olwen. Bertha (91 years old) and Esther (from Mexico, working as an au pair to learn English) were there also. We had a lovely meal of roast chicken, veggies from Terry and Olwen's patch in Bertha's garden, rice pudding, mashed blackberries and apple, and ice cream! Terry and Olwen have lots of fish, including some in a pond out back that have been there for the 25 years they have lived in that house. They also have two incredibly adorable dogs – HUGE Bernese mountain dogs with LOTS of shaggy dark hair, brown eyebrows that raise or lower in opposite directions to the other when they look from side to side, and a tendency to pad gently into the kitchen and lie down flat with their chins on the tiles, watching the lunch preparations. By the way, I mean “huge” as in “one weighs 10 kg less than me, and the other weighs 8 kg more”.

Afterwards, we came back to the guest house and relaxed until it was time to leave for the gospel meeting, which was at 4:30pm. This was held in a hall across from a pond in an impossibly cute town called Lindfield, about half an hour away. You won't believe who was there – an English worker, Judy, and our very own Jeanette L!!!! What a small world it is – and, as the evening progressed, it got even smaller.

We had already received an SMS at lunch time, inviting us out for tea. This invitation came from Trev and Sharon, who live in Lindfield and have been married for only 4 months, and whom we hadn't yet met at that stage. Trev is from England (and is Olwen's nephew), but Sharon is from Melbourne and has been living in the UK for a few years. She's a primary school teacher, and Trev works in Terry and Olwen's construction business. After the gospel meeting, we followed them back to their place, which was a gorgeous two-storey house next to a hayshed and a row of small business premises, at the end of a lane lined with blackberry bushes and surrounded by green fields dotted with lambs and cows.

After, during and before a lot of highly enjoyable talking and laughing, we ate a yummy tea at a table outside. We then set off for a “dander”. I feel that if it were possible to die from an overload of cuteness, I would not be around to write this blog entry. The entire area was just utterly, unutterably cute, gorgeous, quaint, serene, picturesque and beautiful!! The little lambs ran over at Trev's call (although the first lot were a bit ill, and coughed all over him). There was an enormous castle-like home perched on a nearby hill. The trees and vines formed a canopy above the lane in places, making a large shady green tunnel. A rabbit darted across the lane in front of us. And we filled a bag (and ourselves) with blackberries as we walked!

We then reached the township, where we saw a hunting lodge that had belonged to Henry VII, and wandered through a graveyard beside an old stone church, where the oldest tombstone we found was from the 1760s. This walk included three “firsts” for me: first time picking blackberries, first time climbing over a stile (yes, really!!!), and first time being stung on my second littlest toe by stinging nettles. :) We also saw a couple of signs that warned walkers to stick to the path through the fields, so as to avoid potentially spreading foot and mouth disease.

Back at Trev and Sharon's, we ate some chocolate, looked at their wedding and honeymoon photos, and then showed them our wedding photos on Ringo. It turns out Sharon knows a number of people we know, and some close relatives of people we know, including Ness C, Aussie and Krista, Ritsons, and Sharon and Noel! We talked about lots of things, including funny proposal stories, and about the time I would have thought it was 9:30 or so, we noticed it was 11:30pm!! So off we drove, down the little lane, then back again to collect our forgotten bag of blackberries. We arrived home after midnight, and now here I am! I don't dare tell you the time now, but it starts with “3”. Oh well, it's midday in Australia and only a week ago I was still there, so that must count for something. :)

Anyway, we have made some wonderful friends in Trev and Sharon, and are looking forward to lots more fun times together. It's been a very special day! Goodnight.

PS. I've taken hundreds of photos and can't wait to share a few of them with you, but I'll go back and load them in once we get Internet at home!