But first, getting up to date. On Saturday evening we went to a concert at the Croydon Minster. The choir members do not audition and the choral singing was a little fuzzy – not up to WASO chorus standards. But the young soloists were excellent and the Rossini mass is very easy to listen to.
When we came out it was still light, with a cold breeze. Stephen had his thick coat (I had been using it in the church to try to get comfortable), but I had my denim jacket only. A brisk walk home was the best we could do to get warm.
On Sunday we did nothing very much – we talked with Matt and Hidde on Facetime at 11.30 a.m. Matt continues to look well and happy. In the later afternoon we went out for afternoon tea and shopping. We had pork pies for lunch, mostly so that we could tell Hidde that we had them, rather than because we thought they would be great. They were nice at the time, but have a strong taste of pork which seems to be haunting me still. Perhaps I need a Chinese meal or something to overpower the taste.
This morning we got up in good time to pack for our little trip. In fact, our train didn’t leave until 1.00 p.m., but we wanted to get to the station early to pick up our tickets. We were thinking of just taking my duffle bag for both of us, but I filled it up with my stuff, so Stephen has had to bring the other duffle for his clothes. We still felt we were lightly packed compared with when we went away with the car for a week.
We haven’t bought any food with us as it would have been extra to carry. We can prepare food at our AirBNB, but will probably just have meals out for the couple of days we are here. We have two nights, and are leaving at 5.00 p.m. on Wednesday, which gives us a couple of days here, more or less. We have a room on the ground floor, just down three steps, rather than up many steps, with our own private bathroom. It’s very inexpensive compared with most of the places available here, $103 for two nights including AirBNB fees. Breakfast isn’t included, but there are many options to buy breakfast nearby.
It was cloudy and dull when we woke up this morning, then fined up by the time we left home. We arrived here in sunshine, which tends to make a good impression. There is a coolish breeze, so we need jackets. We really enjoyed the train ride. Obviously when we were travelling along near the sea Stephen put away his paper to look out the window.
Stephen didn’t do any preparation in terms of looking up the attractions of this area before we came. Whilst I am tapping away at the blog he is doing some research for the next couple of days.
Stephen was joking (I hope) with the waitress that we should get a discount because our name is Hastings. She confided that the manager had said to only charge us for one tea cake, not two – we were already being given a discount. I think we will come back to this cafe.