BRIGHTON!!!!

There was a seagull....

Today Emma and I hired a car to take a leisurely drive down country, to Brighton. We purchased it online on Monday from a rental place in Reading, which in itself was quite simple. Unfortunately the actual planning-to-execution of this adventure is quite a tale.

We decided to Google Map our path to Brighton, which showed us taking the M25. This is London's ring-route motorway which apparently can be mayhem, which on a leisurely drive one tries to avoid. So I, being cunning, dragged the little blue path 'south' so that it would redirect us, away from any ridiculous congestion. This then gave us a fantastic path, almost directly south from Reading down to Brighton. Unfortunately we didnt get a local to 'verify' our Google path, but promptly printed out our directions, trained to Reading, taxied to 6/8 Commercial Road in Reading, and picked up Rocky - our (apparently four door) little silver Peugot 107.

First encounter of driving a manual for the first time in yonks - stalled on the road leaving the hire-car place :(

Second encounter - roundabouts in a manual. DIFFICULT!!! Especially as there are so damn many of them, and the lane lines disappear, and people go SO FAST through them, and there are SO DAMN MANY OF THEM!!! However, for all their faults, are particularly handy when lost, as you just can keep going around them, until you find the correct exit (or incorrect, as the story will unfold...)

Third encounter - realising our Google Map path was not particularly straightforward... By the time we got to the outskirts of Woking, we had to pull over at a petrol station to ask someone for 'clearer' directions, as ours seemed to be taking us on many a strange road... The lovely witch lady who helped Emma almost scoffed at our path, and told us really, we just needed to aim for Dorking (haha, still funny name...)

So, redirecting ourselves, and yet still finding our way back onto the road Google suggested, we stumbled our way through Woking, Dorking, Guildford, Horsham and a number of other funny-named places along London's A-roads...

Thus, 2-and-a-bit hours later, we duly arrive very excitedly in BRIGHTON!!!!! Although it's not much to see, we knew what was coming up - Brighton Pier, carnival rides, carnival food and the sea!!

Fourth encounter - how do you get to the sea?? (turns out you just follow the road... but still, small panic to begin proceedings)

After parking Rocky, we took a jubilant walk along the waterfront, down onto the stoney foreshore and along to the Pier. Many photos were snapped, much pointing and exclaiming was occuring, it was all very fun (especially because we had ACTUALLY made it to Brighton - without incident!!) Up and along the Pier we went, stopping in the Rock Shop for some Brighton Rock (which is how our car Rocky got its name). We each got a marshmallow lollypop which was sickly sweet and delicious, and we wandered down the Pier eating straight sugar... As it turned out, this marshpop ended up getting us photographed by some lady, as we stood in front of the merry-go-round horses. This picture will no doubt go up on Facebook with the caption 'still kids at heart' or something...

After the Pier (part one) we dawdled back up the main road, to a very odd looking building we had seen driving in... It looked Turkish, and there were no signposts for it, so we were curious. Turns out it was the Royal Pavilion - the Royal Family holiday home from way back... At £10 to get in, we decided that was about as much as we would be learning about said weird-looking building. We found our way up to some beautiful old streets, which is apparently The Lanes - famous for their narrow streets and cute nature. Indeed, twas very cute.

A delicious encounter five - Of course, being in Brighton, we needed to have something fishy for lunch. We found a very quaint restaurant called Darcy's, which was apparently 40 years old, very small and very delicious. I had cod & chips, Em had seafood risotto, it was all very lovely.

After lunch, we wandered back down to the seaside, enjoyed the mild temperature and walked along the promenade. Emma found her camera has some amazing settings, and took some very cool photos (one of which she sketched...........!). We really were waiting for the Pier to turn it's lights on - come on!! So we went back to the entrance (Pier part 2) and bought some doughnuts, which is where the aforementioned Seagull comes in...

Horrible encounter, #6 - As we sat, enjoying our doughnuts and the lapping of the ocean, a humongous Seagull eyed us while eating said delicious treats. It began caw-ing, but we didnt pay much attention to it... Then it flew down to the table across from us and basically eye-balled Emma, still holding her doughnut... Deciding this was getting a little intense, as more of this Seagulls friends were flying in around us, we made a move for the Pier exit, and we both attempted to scare said Seagull away.... BAD IDEA!!! Said Seagull decided he wanted delicious doughnut, and SWOOPED in on Emma, narrowly missing her head! She THREW delicious doughnut to the ground, yelling "JUST TAKE IT!!" and said Seagull promptly landed on the Pier, gobbled up the doughnut, squarked at us once more, as we literally RAN off the Pier.... Horrid things.

Terrified, we decided, seeing the lights lit on Brighton Pier wasn't such a huge deal while mutant seagulls were watching. Bastards. So we went back to Rocky, jumped in, drove the A-24 out of Brighton and back to civilised pigeon-dwelling London.

Encounter seven - handling, and dominating, the M25! Pfffft, this has NOTHING on Auckland traffic; they warned us on huge overhead signs about delays on the M3 (our chosen route) and yet when we got on there, it was flowing at a smooth 50km/hr!! Practically speeding by Auckland rush-hour terms... This was also a great time to start bragging about how fantastic we were at navigating the roundabouts and roads of the UK. High-fiving, too cocky for our own good (aside from the small detour back to Brighton for 2 miles when we went the wrong way around yet another roundabout... ridiculous roundabouts).... We were enroute to Reading to deliver the car, then were waiting to get off at the right roundabout (!!) when it never showed up, and all of a sudden we were on the M4 to SOUTH WALES!!!! 114 miles away..... SHIT!!!!!!!!

Encounter eight - Michael Bublé saved the day. And our anxiety levels. Six miles down the M4, we finally saw a sign to Central Reading.... Just as Michael came on the radio! We were perhaps a little tense on the fact we may have ended up in Cardiff....... As it turned out, this Reading exit took us to the right end of town! Considering our 'fantastic' Google Map instructions didnt tell us how to get BACK to the hirecar place, we ended up driving around looking for the road 'next to the Volvo dealer'.... Thankfully my co-driver is amazing and saw it; so we only had one last encounter to overcome...

Encounter nine - after finally finding a petrol station, the bloody cap on Rocky's petrol tank was more difficult to unlock than Mother Teresa's chastity belt! It was ridiculous!!! I gave up, Emma tried and the Shell guy failed; we were fussing over it for 10 minutes before, by some blessed fate, a guy who WORKS at a rental place drove up, saw our plight and promptly opened it upon a simple key, push and twist system!

We delivered the car with 4 minutes to spare (we said we were going to have it back at 8pm; this was partially the reason for cocky high-fives when we got to 'Reading' at 7.12pm... Only to drive through and out of Reading by 7.20pm....)

Our taxi was duly waiting, as was the train, and we were home by 9pm, when I promptly fell asleep.

Such fun!