Camping.
Tom and I sat on the train, looking out of the windows, wondering what the hell we were thinking. Not really, we were actually really excited to be going camping. Which one of those statements is true? Even I'm not sure.
Anyway when we arrived in Brighton Tom annoyed a few people in the cash machine queue by accidentally pushing in, then we found a cafe to have a breakfast-brunch and optimistically wait for the rain to ease. Whilst doing this we were in a great position to watch many a sorry soaked soul pass by outside. And free black pudding, best cafe ever.
Finally the rain stopped and we got a bus to the campsite. Destination Woodingdean, yaaaaay.
After we had walked away from the main road, up a massive hill with all our bags, and back down the other side we arrived at a farm which may or may not have been the campsite. Turned out it was. We confusedly looked around and a man with long blond hair in two plaits poked his head out of a porta cabin. We signed in and he apologised in advance about the stag party which had arrived about two minutes before us, already merry at about four in the afternoon. (In the end they caused no trouble at all but the nice campsite man said if they did he would make them pay for our stay LOL.)
We pitched the tent, which took thirty minutes instead of the ten as stated on the label. Then we went back into Brighton on our day saver bus tickets to pick up Yoon and get some food supplies. Fifty pounds worth of Aldi shopping later we returned and got the campfire going. The sky was all kinds of reds, oranges and pinks. Such a beautiful sight - people think I'm weird when I use the word magical to describe sunsets but it truly was. I took way too many photos of it because each time I looked again I thought it looked different or better. Something about sunsets just makes you feel calm and relaxed and appreciate life. Aahhh how nice. Then night fell. None of us slept well.
No sign of the bucketing from earlier for the rest of the weekend. Saturday was a beautiful day. We boiled some water on the little stove that my dad was very excited about being used again after twenty years - just enough to make one cup of sachet coffee at a time. Rock 'n' roll. After breakfast we asked Plait-Man if there were any good walks we could go on from the campsite and he suggested following the paths over the hills and that to Lewes, another town a few (seven) miles away. We took his advice, packed a picnic and set off.
The hills were so green, I don't think I've seen anything that naturally bright green and it was very refreshing to see after so much time spent in London. Everything's grey there. There were sheep, cows, mountain bikers and dogs. All jolly and not thinking about boring every day life. Well, the cows probably were because that's what they do every day anyway. But still, the must be pretty happy in that case. Ooh we saw calves as well, very cute.
The only problem on our trip was that we changed our plan mid-way. Ohhh let's not go to Lewes, that direction looks more interesting. Is a dangerous thought which could end up with you walking for hours on end to a destination which doesn't exist. This is definitely what happened to us and our feet were very painful when we finally reached a small town on the coast. We paid a quick fleeting blink-of-an-eye visit to the sea and then sat down for a hot drink. We got a taxi back to the campsite, retracing our steps was less than appealing. A wonderful and happily tiring day. There was no impressive sunset this evening as there were a lot of clouds. Bushman-Plait-Man warned of rain, at precisely eight to nine pm, due to last all night. We hastily got the fire going, a much more successful and flamey one than last night's. We'll be proper fire demons by the end of this. Despite the warnings the rain didn't start till much later, until we were safely tucked up in bed. I slept really well and didn't hear a trace of the apparently near gale force storms going on around us. In the morning it was still howling and raining, and I'm impressed with our little tent for withstanding it. Eventually we had to get up and pack our belongings, take down the tent. Not an easy task in these conditions. We said thanks to Bushman-Spoonmaker-Campsite-Man and were on our way. What a fabulous weekend. Let's do this lot's more, I hear lots of people say. Good plan, I hope it happens. Back soon. I'm trying to write these more because my Gran thinks I can be a journalist.
