Went to Brighton - Felt Very Proud

This (points to the left with thumb) is what Brighton looked like last Saturday. What a glorious summer's day to celebrate Brighton Pride!

Sock Monkey arranged to meet up with friends in the bar at Brighton Station as our trains got in at almost the same time. This is where the plans started going a bit wonky.

I got off my train and the closer I got to the bar the more it looked like a branch of Marks & Spencer Food Hall. Ah that would be because it was a Marks & Spencer Food Hall. Then I got a text from Jan, "We are in the Railway Bell opposite and have a pint here for you". This is the kind of text I like. Sock Monkey hadn't seen Jan & Lynn for the best part of a year so it was lovely to catch up. We had a couple of drinks, a big gossip then schlepped to Preston Park.

The walk there wasn't so bad but when we got there Preston Park wasn't looking her best. It was grey and yeuch. We had arranged to meet some other people so J&L waited for them at X marked the spot whilst I went on an errand to the beer tent. After about 20 minutes we gave up waiting for the others. Thank God because we were outside the Wimmin's Tent which appeared to be having a flashback to the 1980's and was emanating angsty songs.

Then we spent a delightful 45 minutes queuing up for a pee and by this time it was bucketing. Actually it was quite a laugh as everyone had gone into extreme Dunkirk Spirit and some of the girls were thinking of fashioning ShePees out of a variety of items they happened to have about their persons. A hollow flag pole being one one of them. And we discussed the point of actually practicing to become good at something so naff (ie Line Dancing).

I did eventually manage to meet up with Alan (after several phone calls along the lines of ,"Can you hear me??" "Yes I can hear you. Can you hear me? I'm in the queue for the loos beside the Line Dancing Tent. Yes dear. LINE DANCING".) I asked him where his boyfriend was and he laughed and said, "He refused to come. And all my friends left after half an hour! I'm going home now too." At least he lives in Brighton and could be wearing slippers and having cocoa in no time.

J, L & I took cover in the Line Dancing tent as we couldn't face looking for the Drag Tent. If in fact there was one. I must say the entertainment seemed to be a bit lame. There was a young guy standing beside us who seemed to be having a great time and told us, "I have my cigarettes, my drink and my Brokeback Mountain Jacket on. This is great." Sock Monkey just looked at him and replied, "We are stuck in a Line Dancing Tent".

We schlepped back to Brighton (young girl behind us in the mass exodus pretty much summed it up by saying to her friend, "I'm just so unhappy") and we went straight back to the bar we started in. This time to meet Lily & Jossipa who had just arrived. 2 hours late as usual. It was actually a fun afternoon believe it or not. We've all been friends for years and as such remember when we used to find all this exciting. Lynn said, "You spend years going out all the time just to meet someone you can stay in with." I think this is a fair point!

Where was P you say? She was in Norfolk at a wedding. One of her texts that day said, "Its bloody roasting here." The final one was "Am sitting on the beach with my brother having a drink". And she'd been narked to miss the Brighton trip ha ha!

I would have posted a nice pic of Jan & Lynn looking very waterlogged and miserable here but Jan declared it too hideous for human consumption and deleted it from my camera.