Fish & chips & martians

The day started a bit later than anticipated due to the antics of a black squirrel that kept posing on a tree outside my sister's house. Apparently these squirrels can only be found in a couple of places in the UK, and Letchworth is one of them. I'd seen a couple of ordinary grey squirrels as well, but this was a good start to my birthday - to see something so rare.

I checked out my sister's new man and then we set off on our adventure. Despite massive roadworks that reduced our speed on the M25 to 50mph (approx 80kph) plus one stretch of 40mph, we reached the first stop on our travels in reasonable time.

I have now seen and been inside the Threshold music shop, which got a big nod of approval from my sister. I even bought something (a Moody Blues DVD of course) so I now have a Threshold plastic bag *g*


Cobham seems to be a bustling little place and very pleasant to visit, even without the Moody Blues connection - almost a place I could stay awhile.

We had a quick bite to eat then set off for Brighton. The hotel I'd booked us into sent me (supposedly) clearer instructions on how to find the place, as apparently other guests had complained they were hard to find. Well, let's just say the revised instructions were even less clear than the original set! By sheer fluke we found ourselves in the right street for the carpark which is right behind the hotel.

Once we'd settled in we headed down to the seafront and to the venue, mostly just to see how long it would take to walk there - 10 mins give or take - and the box office was open so we collected our tickets then headed off to walk along the Promenade and look down on all the people sitting on the shingle beach.

It was between 5.30 and 6pm and the sun was as high in the sky as between 2 & 3pm on an aussie summer day.

We munched on fish & chips, wandered a little more then back to the hotel to change and get back to the Brighton Centre for the show.

Sis was mightily impressed with the event - she hadn't been to a show like this for a long time and queued up with me to buy the CD of that night's show (yet another bonus birthday treat). We were both in agreement that Jennifer Ellison (Eastenders) might look the part for the Parson's wife, but she really can't sing that well. There was one word she kept mangling at one point in the verse, which was repeated at the end of the verse and she didn't mangle it then. Very strange.

Unfortunately, just about every photo I took came out blurry (drabbit!) but the completely different angle to the stage from the Brisbane show made it so much better.

Sadly, Shannon Noll did not perform (some will wonder why that was sad), due to a family problem, but his understudy did a creditable job as the Parson.

JH looked his usual self, but his voice sounded tired and there was one moment where he went off key, but at least his microphone worked all the way through this time!

That was yesterday. Today we wandered through The Lanes, full of curio shops, jewellery stores, you name it they've got it stores, then went to Eastbourne to visit one of my cousins. We got there around 4pm and left 6 hrs later, when sis declared she was almost too tired to drive back to Brighton.

Tomorrow we're off to crop circle/white horse territory.