Last day of freedom!

My legs are slightly stiff (we cycled 25 miles today) but I feel better for having been outdoors for most of today.

After breakfast this morning...





(mmmm, homemade jam....) we cycled to the station and took the train down to Brighton. From there, we cycled along the shoreline via Shoreham to Worthing before catching the train home.





The play areas along the beach always seem poignant to me, because they are so lovely, yet it seems like every time we are in Brighton the wind is howling and it's absolutely freezing, so every time we see them they're pretty much deserted.





We took a slightly wrong turn just after we passed this broken railing





but I didn't mind having to back-track because the wrong turn led us to this, which I thought was cool.





The landscape along here always strikes me as somewhat post-apocolyptic. It's so bleak and stony; seems like what might remain after people have vanished from the earth...





We stopped for a cup of coffee in Shoreham, then crossed the River Adur.





I can't help imagining living in each of the places we visit. We toyed briefly with the idea of life in one of these houseboats, but decided against it on the grounds that the mud looked too sludgey and the houseboats didn't look like they could actually sail anywhere.





We noted this warning; presumably a cyclist who didn't follow those Sustrans signs quite carefully enough...





We sat on the rocks and watched the kite surfers for a while. Bobby is keen to try it; I think it looks beyond my capabilities.





They are beautiful though.





I didn't have the gall to take a picture but I was intrigued by the beach huts, and couldn't stop myself peering in as we passed them. They are the line of little white huts that run between the cycle path and the beach. Inside, it seems like everyone is set up in more-or-less the same way: a two burner gas cooker thingy, with a kettle on it (for tea I assume), a couple of deck chairs, a table, and a radio. All very cosy and domestic, but rather unbeachlike, somehow! But then, a beach made of pebbles is also not truly beach-like to me. Apparently there's a huge waiting list for the beach huts; I'm told that one rents them from the council for £300-odd quid a year.





Once we got to Worthing we explored a bit,. as there was a model-aeroplane shop Bobby wanted to visit. But sadly (for him) it was shut.





I find that living here where it's often grey, things like this street fair we came across in Worthing seem beautiful to me, whereas before I wouldn't have really appreciated them.

And then we took the train back home.

I'm glad my last pre-work day was a good one. I'm quite apprehensive about the new term; to the extent that I've been having anxiety dreams about it for the last couple of nights. Hopefully the anticipation will be worse than the reality.