A Massage and a View

Yesterday began moderately sunny, but gradually deteriorated into gray skies and, last night, rain. It's raining now hard enough that Olga wouldn't go outside, even after enthusiastically clambering down the hotel stairs. Rainwater was blowing in beneath the front doors, puddling the entrance foyer. This is a very blustery town in November.

We did get a walk yesterday morning, when Dave and I went out to find coffee and breakfast, and Olga tagged along. Then I got a massage, which was fantastic. The hotel where we're staying is also a spa, and although the spa facilities are apparently closed for renovation, you wouldn't know it. When I went downstairs for my massage there were treatment rooms and everything looked very professional. I haven't had a massage in years -- certainly since the pandemic, and even quite a while before that -- so I was long overdue.

Afterwards I went out for lunch with Olga while Dave, not feeling well, stayed and rested in the room. We went to a pub in town where I had mac n' cheese and a pint, and then we walked back along the seafront.

You can see the weather beginning to turn, and Olga's mood turning to match.

When I got back to the room I finished "Great Expectations." Woo hoo! Another Dickens down! Despite all the serious themes he really is quite a humorous writer -- at one point he said a girl's head resembled the mop she was carrying. He likened another character's mouth to a letter-box, and later mentioned as an aside that same character "putting fish into the post-office." Funny!

In the afternoon, we went out to the Brighton i360, the tall donut-on-a-stick I mentioned a few days ago. I erroneously called it a "rotating cocktail bar" -- turns out it doesn't rotate, but you can have a drink while you walk around inside the glass pod. It rises 450 feet above the beach and you get a good view eastward to the Seven Sisters and westward toward Bognor Regis.

Here's a little video so you can pretend you were there. The white hotel that I zoom in on at the very end is where we're staying. Olga was in that building at that very moment -- kind of a strange thought.

After indulging in the views, we went to Costa for some coffee and Dave happened to mention that while he was there a couple of months ago on a daylong school trip, he left behind his water bottle. So while he ordered our coffee I went to the lost & found in the adjacent theater and darned if they didn't have it! Dave couldn't believe it. He said he wouldn't have even thought to ask -- but working in a school I have become an expert at reuniting people with their lost possessions, as you know.

Last night we had dinner at a very good seafood place called The Salt Room, where Dave was convinced our mustachioed waiter was faking his French accent. He was indeed very zis and zat. "It's just over the top," Dave said. The food was great, though.

Today we're headed back to London. Hopefully the rain won't be too miserable by the time we leave our hotel. We're planning to walk to the train station, and if the rain's pelting down Olga may put up a fight!