A Dirty Weekend...

We parted with our friends in Wiltshire, with sadness.  He hugged us and departed to play cricket, and she made us a healthy snack for the road, added a couple of slices of homemade cake, and gave us a kiss goodbye.

It is so nice to meet and chat with your old mates, but it is ever difficult to depart from their company, wondering when next you will see them again.

They live in a nice rural home with a pretty garden, and I think I could live there without any difficulty. The home itself was perfectly comfortable, and the kitties very friendly.  I am more of a dog-person than a cat-person, but these kitties were easy to like and to get along with.  (I've already posted pictures.)

The agenda for the day was to get to Brighton, where I spent several years as a student, way back in the dark ages.  But we thought that since the drive was not a long one, we could visit the historic waterfront area of Portsmouth, where Nelson's Victory (1765) and the Henry VIII era Mary Rose (1511) were on view.

We simply could not find anywhere to park in Portsmouth.  There was actally a traffic jam outside one parking structure, where people were battling to be the first to enter when the next space became available.

We actually got to within a couple hundred feet of the Victory and could see her rigging quite clearly, over a huge queue of people waiting to take the tour.  But by that time we were fed up, and didn't even take a photograph.  So we departed Portsmouth

and set our sights on Devil's Dyke, near Brighton.

The idea was to go there, sit on the summit and look out over several counties, and even (on a clear day) out to the Isle of Wight.

Guess what?  No parking!  We had to drive down from the summit about a mile, before we could park, and take a few photographs.  Also, I'd promised our friends in Brighton to send them a text an hour or so before arriving, but when we stopped to eat our healthy snack lunch... no bars!

It was probably our fault, because we should have expected the popular tourist places to be overrun on a Sunday in the middle of the summer.  It might make more sense to return in the week, instead.

In any case, we left Devil's Dyke and navigated our way to the house of friends.  I stayed there with them once before, 33 years ago!  We were warmly received, and shown to our premium accommodation.  All very lavish!  There was even a Wi-Fi hotspot available created just for our visit!