Brighton

Today was Ellie's 8th birthday. She's with Pete this weekend, and I believe the plan was for him to take her to an adventure park called Knockhatch, somewhere near Hailsham. 

It was a bright, cloud-free start to the day.  I had my usual call with the cousins to start the morning, and it was nice to see Cate calling in from Kylesku in the far north of Scotland. The call followed the usual pattern, with suitable abuse being shared among all participants.

The rest of the morning was quiet, but immediately after lunch we hopped in the car and set off for Brighton. The SatNav had warned us of various delays and I selected one of its suggested routes. Almost as soon as we left, the SatNav recommended a change to the route and seemed to guide us into every tailback and set of roadworks that it could find in West Sussex. It even guided us into a dead-end street at one point.

We arrived at Trevor and Sue's just after 2 p.m., and after a quick chat, we walked the 150 yards to the care home where Jean now lives. I was amazed by how close it was. We were given the full tour of the facility and must admit that it was more like a top-class hotel than a car home. The facilities were stunning and included several lounges on each floor, several dining rooms, a coffee bar, a small shop, and even a hairdresser. It is clearly well run, and whilst expensive, it is a comfortable home with a family atmosphere for its residents.

Jean, who is now almost totally blind, walked back to S&T's with us and we settled down for some tea and a good chinwag. Sue spoke (ad nauseam) about their grandchildren and their progress at school and with their other activities. We also heard about their recent (somewhat disappointing) trip to Morrocco and their planned river cruise up the Danube.  

Time ticked by, and we piled into the car and drove around to the village (Patcham), where we had a table booked at "La Tana", their local Italian restaurant. I must say that considering it was tucked away, off the main areas of Brighton, it was superb. The decor was nice, the ambience was cosy, and the staff were delightful. Diane had some fresh sea bass in cream and lemon sauce, and I had some "Penne al pollo" (pasta cooked with chicken, peppers, garlic, onions, with cream and tomato sauce). We could not fault the food (not that we were trying to), it was excellent.

We drove Jean back to the care home and then settled down with Sue and Trevor for some more gossip before finally heading home. In contrast to the journey to Patcham, we had a fabulous run home, where we were greeted by Jasper, who had eaten all of the dinner that we had left out for him.