Cribb study tour 2016

Just a few hours after landing and we're already in trouble with the police!

Thanks to Dani studying in Dundee for 6 months Grant has been persuaded to board the long flight back to the mother country. I'm here by just assuming from the first that I would be included.  So onto the iconic QF1.

We booked exit row Seats on the top floor of the A380 and my QANTAS club membership gives us lounge access. Best we could do without springing for business class. I would have to say they were excellent seats with the only problem being the lack of storage space - trade off for the leg room I guess. Service was excellent - but sleep on airplanes is always pretty difficult.

On landing we were off to pick up our hire car and drive to Brighton. The Europcar office was slammed and the whole process took about 2 hours - much longer than expected. Somehow we ended up walking out having been up sold from the Passat we had booked to a MUCH more expensive Mercedes SUV. Which is lovely and brand new.

Operating on very little sleep Grant is driving down the M road. We are in the middle lane of the road when the satnav falls off the screen. As we frantically try to reinstall it, evidently our speed must have dropped below some mandatory minimum. A police car speeds up beside us on our left and the occupants gesture angrily at us to move over. Confusing - as doing that would have caused us to crash into them...  Anyway with much angry gesturing from the bobbies - we move chastened into the left lane - risking being whisked off to an unknown destination on one of the mysterious exits.

With no further incident we arrive in our first scheduled stop - the town of Battle. You may think that the Battle of Hastings in 1066 took place in the town of Hastings.  But no - turns out it took place just down the road in the town of Battle.

Battle turns out to be a sweet little town having some kind of festival that involves dressing up. We see a dead ringer for Captain Mainwering - complete with home guard uniform and another bunch dressed up as the trains fro Thomas the Tank engine (yes - really). We have a lovely pub lunch and a walk around. Being early Spring  the trees still look bare and are just coming into leaf But daffodils are up all over the place in clumps by the side of the road.

We have a lovely pub lunch and a bit of a wander. I see a fake fur hat and, in an uncharacteristic burst of thrift, decide not to buy it. A decision that I rue for the next several days of wind and rain which I endure with my daggy purple beanie jammed on my head.

After Battle we head for Brightom where we are booked to stay in a seafront hotel. We try to outsmart the NAVMAN and plot a route by the coast rather than inland where it wants to take us. Big mistake. I have a rapid refresher course in Th eccentricity of English road signs. On the not very detailed map we have picked up it LOOKS as though you just need to follow a particular A road to go where we want to go - but the signs don't necessarily include that A road in any of the exits from a particular roundabout - instead ALL directions have A and B road numbers that are not the road we are trying to follow. Even going by the next town along the route doesn't help - as there may be several routes to the same town. After driving in circles for a while, we give in and follow the satellite navigation directions. After all - this is what we brought it along to do.

By the time we arrive in Brighton, Grant is exhausted. But the closer we get to our hotel, the worse the traffic gets. Close to the seafront, the traffic is bumper to bumper,, it takes us close to half an hour to  travel the last kilometer. This includes scary interludes where we end up in the wrong lane because of strange configurations of intersections....

At this point it dawns on me that a seaside town is probably not a good destination for an Easter Saturday. We can see that the footpaths are also packed with holidays get Brits.

When we finally reach our hotel room at 4:30 in the afternoon all we can manage is a shower before we fall into a deep sleep. Brighton can wait until tomorrow.