BRIGHTON BETRAYED?...

Suzi was still in the restaurant – to be recommended by the way - with my younger daughter Fifi, who was wiping chocolate pudding from Suzi’s face. (You can take the girl out of Glasgow, but not Glasgow out of the girl.) I was looking across the river and chatting with Fifi’s boyfriend Matthew. It was a glorious May day and all the talk was about how our migration south was going, which continued afterwards as we all walked across Blackfriars Bridge and down the Strand, where we had drinks in the Aldwych – also to be recommended. (While on a food/pub critic roll, the best lunch we had in Brighton was almost exactly a year away, when on our very last day we ate at La Fourchette on Western Road. During our year our once-only approach to so many things applied also to it, which meant that during our twelve months in Brighton we’d deprived ourselves of any number of excellent meals in that fine establishment.) Meanwhile, on leaving the Aldwych and after saying our goodbyes to Fifi and Matthew, Suzi and I headed towards Trafalgar Square. En route we stopped for a few moments. I looked down Craven Street and I was walking its pavements once again. With holiday cash garnered from Sir Ivor’s triumph in the 1968 Derby I’d spent a few days in one of the street’s now demolished hotels. Suzi knows all about my colourful time there and is not alone in saying, ‘you should write a book about it.’ Sufficient to say that were I to do so, extracts couldn’t be uploaded – the Web Editor just wouldn’t allow it!

I remember having our photo taken in Trafalgar Square with Craven Street in the background and then making our way to Victoria and the train south. On the Sunday we rose late, chilled, strolled for the first time up Grand Avenue, where on one of its corners with Church Road we had a mid-afternoon meal in an Italian eaterie - and perfectly satisfactory it was too - and then ambled back towards the Lawns that we would grow to love. The sea sparkled, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and ‘tomorrow’ would be even better: we’d have a new place to live, our own Brighton home.

(If you’ve enjoyed reading this, you might like to check-out our first hours in Brighton in ‘Arrival’ and ‘And We’re Off’. My next post will be up in a fortnight.)

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