Cycling, familar faces, vintage shopping and saying goodbye

At last! A new blogpost. I haven’t been able to write for the past few weeks due to circumstances back home in the Netherlands, but thankfully I’m back with a story about my past weekend which was packed with activities.

My friends and I were constantly checking the weather forecast to reassure us that it would be the first proper spring day on Saturday, and we were right.

I had been in contact with Esther, one of my classmates from the Netherlands who works as an au pair in Andover (near Southampton), for the past few weeks. When we were both still in the Netherlands we agreed to meet in Brighton on a nice and sunny day, last Saturday was that day. It was an impressive 18 degrees Celsius so it was only logical that we would meet at the seafront. Brighton on a sunny day is an awful place to be when you have to drive so it wasn’t that much of a pleasant experience for Esther to get here, however when she found a place to park her car we went into the city centre for lunch and met my friends (Lisa, Alva, Cara and Leonie) at the beach again to have a little chat and have cream tea (a specific type of tea with scones on the side) in the Lanes afterwards, it was lovely. We went our separate ways at the end of the afternoon and we talked about our plans to go to Bath and Bristol for a weekend together, so stay tuned for that blogpost!

On Sunday we had an entirely different agenda compared to the day before. Lisa and I wanted to go to this beautiful bit of countryside called Devil’s Dyke and being the stereotypical Dutchies we are, we wanted to go there on our bikes. A little background information about why it’s called Devil’s Dyke: “Devil's Dyke got its name from a legend. The legend says the devil was furious at the conversion of the people of the Weald to Christianity and decided to dig a dyke through the South Downs, so the sea could flow in and drown their villages. To make sure his efforts were not discovered until it was too late, he decided to dig it over a single night. However his work woke an old woman, who lit a candle. This then woke her cockerel, who began to crow. Seeing the light and hearing the cockerel, the devil was fooled into thinking it was dawn, rushed off with his work uncompleted and the Weald was saved.”

The weather wasn’t going to be as hot and sweaty as the day before so we figured it would be a great day to hop on our bikes and see some of the countryside. We were right, except for the fact that it was incredibly windy when we went uphill, but that didn’t kill the mood one bit.

After we finally reached the top we were greeted by the most beautiful view, a beautiful green kind of valley with pretty English houses and buildings as far as you could see downhill.

After we were done exploring devil’s dyke we thought we’d grab a bite to eat in the pub that’s at the very top of the countryside but unfortunately it was fully booked as it was Mother’s day in the UK so we cycled back to pub in central Brighton (this time with the wind in our backs, took us about 10 minutes to cycle back… compared to the 30 minutes uphill).

After lunch Lisa and I met up with Alva and Cara to go vintage shopping in the Brighton Dome and in the North Laine. As we were counting down Alva’s last days in Brighton it was nice to do something together with the entire group because most of the time we’re out and about doing different things during the weekend.

Because Alva had finished school on Friday and left to go back to Stockholm so we still had a couple of afternoons to spend together. It was sunny so we strolled through the city, ate donuts, grabbed some OK-ish coffee (she’s passionate about her coffee) and had our last afternoon beer (very passionate about her beers too) at the White Rabbit (pub) on Monday.

Tuesday evening was our last evening together with the four of us and unfortunately it was a rainy day. We decided to end Alva’s adventure where it all started: going to the Brunswick (another pub) on a rainy Tuesday evening to listen to a disappointing jazz jamsession. We said our goodbyes, Alva’s back in Stockholm and it’s just the three of us now.

Lots of love,

Esmee