As the summer weather improved here in England, so my thoughts turned to the seaside. The sun was beating down, the rest of my family were away for a couple of weeks and so I thought to myself, "I have two choices here. Work, with all the stress, problems, heat and dirt or Brighton and the other resorts on the south coast of England in the county of Sussex. Well, as you can probably guess it was no contest and I went to work as usual! No, I didn't.

On a really hot and sunny day I took the old jalopy out of mothballs and set off. It is only about sixty miles and despite the fact that a lot of other folk had obviously had the same idea, the roads were not too busy and in no time at all I was dipping my toes in the briny! Ah! Lovely!

Sussex is a beautiful part of England with gentle, rolling hills called the Downs and some of the most picturesque seaside towns. Brighton is the most popular and attracts the most tourists each year. It is very modern in a lot of ways, especially on the seafront itself where the vast majority of tourists go but it also has a wonderful maze-like warren of narrow olde worlde streets hidden away. Here are all manor of arts and crafts shops, tea rooms, antique shops and small bazaars. Little cafes and bookshops and treasure of all sorts.

It was here that in 1784 the Prince of Wales, known as the Prince Regent, later King George the IV of England, had a pavilion built. Completed in 1787 this fantastic building survives today as a tourist attraction and now houses a museum, picture galleries and assembly halls. There is a famous horse racing course in Brighton, a large sea-life aquarium, a large marina with some truly stupendous boats moored and of course a rather interesting nudist beach area. Naturally I did not visit this particular area myself. Ahem! Sussex boasts two of the United Kingdoms finest universities. Founded in 1961 the University of Sussex and founded in 1992 the University of Brighton produce some of our greatest scholars. Why, even my own brother went the University of Sussex and he is now a successful bricklayer!

A lot of the seaside resorts in Britain have piers. Some are merely places from which to fish. Others provide a means of getting to various ferries where the water would be too shallow to allow the boats to get close to the shore and some offer a lot of amusements and other attractions for tourists. Brighton has two piers. Palace Pier and West Pier. West Pier is unfortunately closed at present due to severe fire damage but Palace Pier has a very large amusement area, a theatre and a funfair at the end furthest from land. Here you can sit in deck chairs and bask in the sun (or rain), fish, take pleasure boat trips, see a show, have a meal, go on some pretty fierce rides in the funfair or lose a fortune in the arcades. You can buy sticks of rock candy and candy floss (cotton candy for my American and Canadian friends). And of course both on the pier and in the town there are some very, very welcoming pubs! And on a day like the one I was there those pubs are an absolute blessing.

Oh yes, and one other thing that Brighton has is a new Internet cafe. And can you believe that I missed my 'net friends so much even after a single day that I popped in for a quick half hours chat online over a nice cup of coffee. Now how sad am I now?

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