The England Trip - Brighton

[przed]

I know it's weeks late, but I thought I'd put up a few pics from our trip to London. And I figured I'd start with our day trip to Brighton, because it was ridiculous and fun.

I'd never been to Brighton before, but one of Ros' best friends went last year, so she wanted to give it a go. The day we picked to go was a brilliantly sunny day. Brighton itself is sort of charmingly tatty, with everything sort of fraying around the edges, like the decaying pier you can see in the background of this pic.


We couldn't resist this ridiculous photo op. Ros took the picture.


All Ros really wanted to do was ride the Dodge 'ems on the pier all afternoon, and that's pretty much what she did. She was just a bit too small to have a car by herself, so she had to go with either the Sweetie or me.


The other thing she ended up doing a lot was this trampoline activity. Clearly, she is made of rubber.


Ros, the kid who won't try any new food, is always on the lookout for new and unusual candy to try. Flying Saucers aren't something we'd ever seen here, so she couldn't resist. It turned out, though, that I was the only one who liked them. (For those of you who've never tried these things, they're really bland wafers--"communion wafer bland," according to the Sweetie--surrounding a sour/sweet powder that all melts together in your mouth.)


We also popped into a little beachside shop in search of Brighton rock. (True story: the Sweetie thought Brighton rock was... a real rock. I will never let him live that down.) Whilst Ros decided what flavour of rock she wanted, I was desperately hoping she didn't notice the penis shaped lollipops on the shelf above. Brighton's rep as a gay party town is not exaggerated.

Whilst we were taking a little break sitting on the pier, this scene was right in front of us, and it seemed so quintessentially English seaside that I couldn't resist taking a picture.

Comments

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

London kid here so Brighton was a frequent day trip in the summers of my childhood. :D

When you went looking for the Brighton rock did you also run across the sweets made to look like the pebbles on Brighton beach?

Flying saucers were one of my favourites when I was a kid, along with the Sherbet Dab.

[dawnebeth.livejournal.com]

I've seen those pebbles in other sweet shops, even in the US. I never ate any--I know they're not really rocks, but they look like they are...

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

My London granddad insisted they were first invented in Brighton in Victorian times to look like the beach there (you can see the pebble beach clearly in Zed's first picture) but I've never bothered to verify it.

[przed.livejournal.com]

That sounds plausible. That pebble beach is certainly striking.

[przed.livejournal.com]

I can see it being a brilliant day trip when you're a kid. We've got a little amusement park on Toronto Island in our harbour, and it's a big fave with Ros. She loved Brighton, too.

Ooh, didn't see the pebble sweets.

I quite liked the flying saucers. Ros was less impressed. :-/

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

It was a glorious escape from the Smoke if only for a few hours.

Flying saucers were penny sweets so very popular with kids who wanted a large volume of sweets for their pocket money. See also fruit salad, gold rush, Black Jacks, sherbet dab...