A Day at the Seaside - but keep your wooly hat on!

Gosh, another blue sky morn. When am I going to get a lie in? I don't believe I've had a proper slummock a-bed watching iPlayer on my iPad since I joined blipfoto. They never told me this would happen!

Off to the seaside, to have a closer look at the famous bridge, now that it's got its bandages off and is more photogenic. Actually, every time we've been there, usually with visitors, it's been freezingly, head-achey cold, with a gale blowing directly from the Arctic. But today it was positively balmy. On the sunny side of the street. As long as you were out of the wee nippy breeze.

It's a wonder we got there. JR, my chauffeur, is getting slightly fed up with me shouting 'STOP!' and leaping out before the car is stopped when I see a possible blip. There is an unspoken understanding, sometimes mis-understood, that I will proceed in the same direction until I spy the car, parked not to far away, possibly on double yellow lines or a bus stop, engine running.

This morning around the Meadows we came across smoke. Lots of it. I could see it was the cooncil taking off the paint markings on the road, and it wasn't a huge pile up car crash (which of course would be most inappropriate to blip) so I suddenly yelled and leapt out.

The smoke scene wasn't as spectacular as I had hoped, so I won't share it with you. However, I couldn't find the car at the unspokenly understood spot, which this time was a bus stop, with not-very-frequent buses. It was quite some time later, me walking up and down, thinking about popping in to the wee cafe for a cuppa (no money) when my carriage appeared again.

Couldn't stop. There was a Policeman in a police car watching.

Er, watching what?

In Brighton it was a bus right up the bum(per).

Had a very pleasant lunch in a fairly upmarket restaurant. It seems to be taking over the entire seaward side of the town. What fantastic views. We had a lovely seat by the window. A glass of NZ Sauvignon Blanc, a promising menu, but... oh no! Whitney Houston muzak!! A tense few minutes while I declared that I might go next door instead (actually the muzak was worse there) but the nice waitress got Henry (Yes!) to change the CD and turn it down. Equilibrium restored, fish and chips were ordered and it was great.

They even have a super outside seating area, (you can see the umbrellas in the blip) and you feel you can almost touch the bridge. Especially after a few wines, no doubt. But there was a rather nice wrought iron fence between us and the sea. There were loads of wee two carriage trains going to and fro all day. What's that about? The trains down south are MILES long!

The blip I've chosen today is of the bridge, of course. For the first time, I had two blips that I couldn't decide between - usually one jumps out. In one, the clouds were better - it was taken later. But I liked the silhouettes in the cafe scene, although don't go large - the bridge isn't quite as sharp as I would have liked. I did have my smallest aperture, too.

Despite my assertions that I will abstain from any ice cream that's not bottomless, I succumbed. But it was a fairly decent sized one, er, a bit like my bottom...