When I turn 46, I say "No more nonsense": Overnight in Brighton and Bugger Bognor has changed to The King's Bognor

Where am I? All I can remember is Rain Rain Rain. Oh right. Brighton. Things seem a bit brighter this morning !

A room with a view

Old Brighton Pier (the one that burned down)

I take the picture below and have this thought "This picture needs a bird"

A second later:

Thank you, bird !

AMAZING minced lamb in bread with garlic yoghurt

I fell asleep yesterday at 7:50 pm, after eating marinated minced lamb in garlic yoghurt at Ephesus Turkish restaurant. Consequently I am WIDE AWAKE at 3 am. Good actually, because there is MORE RAIN in the forecast, and like yesterday, it is supposed to start at 8 am.

Some sun at the tip of the Brighton Fleshlight

So we leave at 5 am.

The Arun

Good plan, because the forecast is correct and it starts raining again at 7:30 am.

Sporting my bin liner outfit again

Which also happens to be the time - after passing Worthing and other small Hobbit villages - that we arrive in Rustington. Never heard of it? Me neither. But I've been looking for a place to have a coffee and some food for quite a while now. It's around 13 degrees with a strong headwind and I'm chilled to the bone. And Rustington has a Sainsbury's Superstore. Think of an attractive version of Walmart. And this Sainsbury's has a Cafe that opens at 7 am. Americano and a decadent chocolate muffin quickly set my world on the right course again. Zu is fidgeting at the table and I finally figure out that she had noticed the shoe section in the store. I get some writing done and she can look whether this store has Rain Ponchos.

The store has men's and women's clothing, shoes, etc etc, but NO PONCHOS, and when we leave the store with 2 bottles of wine to fill my saddle bags, . But I buy two bottles of Chilean wine for 5 pounds each. When chatting with the cashier I mention that we left Canada to get away from the rain. She just looks at us and dryly remarks "You came to the wrong country".
As soon as we leave the store it starts POURING again, even though it had stopped during the time we sat in the cafe.

WE stand under one of those covered shopping cart collecting points for a while before we have the idea to check out the store behind the pet store for ponchos.

We walk into an equivalent of a Canadian Tire Store and right by the entrance are 2 rain jacket on a Clearance Rack. Oh, Good Karma. We take them, add some chain lube, pay for them, step out of the store, and don't see another drop of rain until we reach our hotel in Elmer.

Holy crap, that's a fabulous picture, Zu!

A dozen fresh ones for me ?

Somewhere around here, a car (a Mini, if I remember correctly) passes us. The driver has tied large wooden fencing segments onto his roof rack. Pretty much 3 or 4 panels of 2 by 2 meters of wood. When it passes me I think, I hope that stuff doesn't come loose and go flying. 4 minutes later there is a traffic jam along a major road. There is a Mini pulled off to the left side. The driver is walking 50 meters behind his car on the right side of the road. He lost his fencing because his RUBBER straps have ripped. Apparently no-one got hurt, but imagine that wood flying up and hitting a cyclist. As soon as I can stop safely (about a mile down the road), I pull over, grab a bottle of wine from my saddle bags and loudly start cursing the RETARD driver.