Transport

I'm going to start this post off with a shot of my dahlias, which are just starting to really pop. Who knows what they'll look like by the time we get back to London in a week! We watered them well yesterday and I put them in a shadier spot, in hopes that they won't dry out too much.

In fact, all of yesterday morning was taken up by preparations for our trip -- mostly plant watering and cleaning up the flat. With that all out of the way, we hit the road at 12:45. Rather than deal with the tube we decided to take a taxi straight from our door to Victoria Station for our 1:54 train, which worked fine despite horrendous traffic and the fact that I accidentally had the driver drop us a block away from the station entrance.

We got inside, bought our tickets from the truly bewildering array of options on the ticketing machines, and gave Olga some water before making our way to the train. Dave carried her partway through the station because she was moving so slowly. (Dave is giving grumpy face in that photo because he hates having his picture taken.)

On the train, Olga slept under our seats or in the aisle. It brought us to Pevensey Bay with no changes, which was fabulously easy, but once here our plans fell apart. I'd intended to catch the bus to our cottage, but we happened to arrive during a 1.5-hour gap in the No. 8 bus's schedule. We weren't about to stand at this absurd bus stop for an hour and a half:

I think one person might fit on that little concrete pad beside a very busy road, but not two people, a dog and a bunch of luggage.

So we called an Uber, and voila, problem solved!

Olga seems happy to be here, lying in the sun beneath the gaze of Poseidon. She was exhausted last night, though, and after eating fell into a deep sleep.

We ordered pizza and I made a rather strange, accidentally vermouth-heavy martini. I could have sworn there were martini glasses here, but I couldn't find any, so I had to serve it in a wine glass (NO, I didn't fill it up!) and because my gin was lukewarm I put it over rocks. It wasn't ideal but it did the job.

This morning when I opened the sliding door to the deck, a very scruffy-looking fox darted off along one of the walls between our neighbors' patios. Even here, on this pebbly beach, we have critters!