The Great Escape 2011 The Great Escape 2011

Fes­ti­val sea­son starts early in Brighton (or does it ever end?), and just a few days back from Madeira we took a lit­tle more hol­i­day to enjoy our first fes­ti­val together, The Brighton Great Escape. Three days spread across the city, with over 100 acts play­ing, I’d ded­i­cated a good por­tion of the week to […]

A week in Madeira A week in Madeira

Our trip to Fun­chal, Madeira wasn’t planned, and it came about through the cir­cuitous route of a can­celled 3 week hol­i­day in Japan, but that’s another and much less excit­ing story. Book­ing last minute, we opted for a one week Thom­son (TUI) pack­age, with flights and hotel included, which is very unlike us. But we […]

Not quite the Life of Riley Not quite the Life of Riley

This past week has been tumul­tuous. Our hol­i­day plans, three weeks in Japan, have been thrown into dis­ar­ray as a 9.0 mag­ni­tude earth­quake and tsunami struck north-eastern Japan. Of course, our hol­i­day is triv­ial com­pared to the destruc­tion and dev­as­ta­tion caused by the nat­ural dis­as­ter. And it’s some­thing that presses on us heav­ily, as we […]

Lancing, Forests and Whisky Lancing, Forests and Whisky

Tak­ing a break from plan­ning a hol­i­day, or stress­ful thoughts about buy­ing a flat, and tak­ing one last oppor­tu­nity to relax before Sam’s exams, we took a drive along the coast to Lanc­ing and Wor­thing. Then in the week we saw the world pre­mière of Neil LaBute’s “In a for­est dark and deep” and I […]

Board games in the pub, and a dash of culture Board games in the pub, and a dash of culture

Since the New Year we’ve been busy bees. Our search for a house stepped up a notch and we’re now faced with a big deci­sion, not sure what to do, but I’m sure every­thing will turn out for the best. We’ve also been plan­ning a mam­moth back­pack­ing trip to Japan — which takes up much […]

Rounding out 2010 Rounding out 2010

We closed 2010 with a film fes­ti­val, some fine din­ing at The Wolse­ley, a wildlife phở­tog­ra­phy exhibit and a week of gorg­ing turkey and trim­mings over Christ­mas. Cinecity Film fes­ti­val In Novem­ber Brighton had its very own film fes­ti­val, which duly lead us to our favourite movie-place, the Duke of Yorks, for a num­ber of […]

Petworth House and Our Anniversary Petworth House and Our Anniversary

It’s been a busy cou­ple of weeks for us; Brighton to Bris­tol and back two weeks run­ning, once for a bio­chem­istry pals meet-up and another for Kayte’s baby shower. This week­end we took some time-out for our 7th anniver­sary, which landed on 10/10/10. With an Indian sum­mer fore­cast, and likely the last t-shirt wear­ing weekend […]

Barcelona, Spain Barcelona, Spain

From our trip to Cadaqués, the return route to Barcelona took us a dif­fer­ent way. Up at 7am, checked out by 8am, with break­fast wrapped in nap­kins, the hotel direc­tor dropped us at the bus sta­tion in his jeep. Adiós. On the Sarfa bus we went up and around the moun­tain roads again, bus swaying […]

Cadaqués, Spain Cadaqués, Spain

From Brighton Sta­tion and the usual decrepit First Cap­i­tal Con­nect trains, then Gatwick Air­port and pro­fi­cient Easy­Jet flight to Barcelona, then taxi to Esta­cio del Nord, and a 2h45 Sarfa bus north, through wind­ing pyre­nean roads, down to the coastal town of Cadaques.

Brighton parade and Beachy Head Brighton parade and Beachy Head

With mum vis­it­ing for the week­end, it was another excuse to explore Brighton’s lanes and this week­end only, watch the pride parade as it passed through the town cen­tre. Then on Sun­day we trav­elled East to see the cliffs at Beachy Head.