Brighton and Burgess Hill, then a plane to Spain

We arrived in Burgess Hill, not far from Brighton on the English south coast, and quickly settled into the home of my friend Tim. It was wonderful having a house to ourselves. Tim is away working so in exchange for eating all his food and drinking all his wine, I mowed the lawn once. It seemed like a good deal to me. :-)

Ellie and I went to the Brighton Pier for an English seaside experience. We certainly had that. We got to look at the pebbles on the beach and feel the English rain in our faces. :-) We had a great time on the Pier. It's a tacky amusement park that is full of wonderful ways to suck the money out of your pocket. We went on a bunch of rides which scared me silly, but Ellie loved them, so that's the important part.

Then on Sunday 1st August I put Ellie on a plane to Spain. She is attending a two-week Spanish school at Malaga on the Spanish south coast. She says it's a bit different from the English south coast. It has sand and hot weather, but there are about the same number of English people on the beach. :-) The school is run by an organisation called Don Quijote. I hope that doesn't mean that they think it's a forlorn hope to teach Spanish to Australian teenagers. For Ellie's description of her time in Spain, see her blog.

I went back to Burgess Hill for another week and continued to drink Tim's wine while maximising his broadband quota. One day there was a massive downpour and the street flooded. I was very excited watching the water level rise rapidly. Then I suddenly realised that I was going to have to save Tim's goods and chattels on the ground floor if it came in his front door. Luckily, his wine was safely above water level. After faffing about a bit and trying to work out what I could move and where to, the water stopped rising and receded rapidly, having never quite reached the front door. Still, it was an interesting experience for an Australian to see so much water running down the street.

On Friday 6th August I helped myself to some of Tim's possessions and caught a train to Frome in Somerset. More of that later.