The Dream

After a somewhat slow start, I walked into town to catch the train to Seaford then Brighton.

It was rather grey as I ran my circuit. This time with all the climbing at the start. Being later than usual, there were more runners about and I must have passed four or five. Back at Glebe Close, Eleanor and I moved the Virgin router across the living room to try to improve the signal in the remainder of the house. It now resides on the top shelf above the TV and the signal is marginally better elsewhere. Download speed is 100Mb/s however upload only 5Mb/s or so. It may improve over time but it’s a lot faster than the 2Mb/s of old!

Virgin are sending someone on Monday to hopefully relocate the router to the other side of the living room wall as I think this is the main problem with the signal.

I decided to buy rail tickets online but couldn’t believe my stupidity! The plan was to travel from Lewes to Seaford, then to Brighton to Decathlon and back to Lewes. I therefore wanted a return from Seaford to Brighton so that I could technically ‘break’ my journey in Lewes. You’re allowed to break your journey although I suspect you’re not supposed to start from the middle.

The first cockup was to buy a single but I remembered to change the collection location to Lewes. Having realised my mistake, I then ordered a day return, which is only £1 more than the £4 single, however I forgot to select Lewes as the collection location. Take three was more successful as I ordered a return AND selected Lewes as the collection location. I don’t think my mind was in the game. Now I had two returns and one single. At least I can get a refund on the others.

There was slight drizzle as I walked towards Lewes station which escalated to rain as I approached. I donned my cagoule, picked up my tickets and caught the train. The journey to Seaford was uninspiring as we passed the delights of Newhaven Town and Harbour. The self-acclaimed ‘Gateway to Europe’!

I scuttled out of Seaford station to Inter Sport’s shop and wasted time not getting their routers to communicate with each other. I changed the UPS battery, removed some of the deceased equipment from the cupboard and tidied up the cables.

It had almost stopped raining as I headed back to the station for the next leg of my journey to Brighton. I managed to watch a YouTube video over 3 or 4G during the trip with only a few seconds of buffering around Falmer. Things have definitely moved on since my Orange phone in the late Eighties. Then, signal was very patchy and the idea of watching a video on your phone was an adventure.

The walk to Decathlon in North Street was as uninspiring as Newhaven Harbour. Wet pavement, beggars and sodden bedding outside shopfronts. Posters on the litter bins reminding us of plastic pollution in the sea.

Decathlon was not busy so I quickly grabbed up some running socks and collected my Web order from the other day. Back to Brighton station as we were leaving for St Botolph’s at 18:00 and needed to go via Greyfriars’.

It was bucketing down as I walked from Lewes station to #5 where Eleanor was loading Mo’s wheelchair into her car. Soggily we headed to Greyfriars’ and thence to Botolph with Siri navigating us around the evening holdups.

Some bright sparks had placed St Botolph’s incorrectly on the map so I decided to correct the location when we finally arrived.

The performance of Mid-Summer’s Night Dream was an amusing variation on William’s original. The cast of six had plenty of fun entertaining the packed church. A Saxon church with Saxon heating, on a wet Thursday evening is chilly. Not as chilly as it was for a Christmas Carol in December I should imagine. We met up with Simon and others from the cast then left to return to Lewes. At least it had stopped raining by then and the journey was rapid and uneventful. The cast are performing in Kent on Friday night followed by Essex on Saturday. Full houses all around I understand.

After our brief stop at Greyfriars’, we returned home where I cooked up some veg before retiring to my boudoir like everyone else. My feet were cold but I soon fell asleep.