The time I visited Eastbourne

As I sit in front of the tele, feeling sorry for myself with the flu, wearing my fluffy jammies, slipper socks and glasses, awaiting the delivery from Hell’s Pizza (ummm how you like me now?), I am reminded of the story that I promised to tell.  No its still not the story of the last tequila debacle, I am not sure that I will ever be ready to tell that, only a select few know that story, but this is the story of a comedy of errors when I went to Eastbourne.

It started out innocently enough.  My then boyf wanted decided to cycle to Eastbourne on a tandem for charity.  There was no training involved and although he was fit, he was not really ready for that.  I was excited as I had never been to Eastbourne before, so I got on the train from Victoria, having proudly remembered to purchase my tickets online and to get them from the machine, unlike the time I went to Edinburgh where I had to pay twice.  But that is another crazy episode in the life of Nic.

So I got on the train, and settled in to begin reading the first Twilight, because my Mum the teenage librarian told me that it was good.  Now let’s be honest, the first one was good, it all went downhill from there.  I managed to get to Eastbourne and find the hotel without a hitch.  Although our hotel was full of old people who were playing bingo when I got there.  No word of a lie there.  It was such a nice day, so I decided to go down to the seaside, I had discovered a long time ago that it is not a beach, but a collection of pebbles. 

I got a deck chair and sat down to enjoy the sunshine and Twilight.  It was lovely, until I put the book down on my lap to enjoy the view and THEN OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK IS BITING ME!!!!! A freaking bee stung me.  God that hurt, and I had no idea if I was allergic or not, having never been stung before.  I could feel my leg swelling up and not really knowing what to do, I pulled the sting out, where it had stung me through my trousers.  And then hobbled back to the elderly hotel.  

When I checked out my thigh, it was huge and very red.  And I was now not feeling great.  So I decided to lie down for a bit, and I ended up sleeping for about 3 hours. 

I awoke to the phone, the boy and the bike telling me that they were still ages away and that I should probably have dinner on my own.

Me after the stinging, before dinner, in the days before the fringe

All good, I got up, freshened up and had a lovely walk on the pier and decided to have  dinner at a fish and chip restaurant outside.  Boyf called to say that they were not allowed to finish the race, they had made it 70 miles, but still had 7 to go, that they were getting in a van and would be back in about an hour.  I ordered my fish and chips and even ventured to have the mushy peas.  My dinner was delicious and I was really enjoying it.  Even tried the peas and they were ok.  But then a bird that was flying over, shat in them.  Yes it shat in my mushy peas.  I was not really sure what to do, so I decided that it was time to get the check.  As I texted the boyf to find out if he needed lucozade, paracetamol or anything else, he texted back to say, he just needed a beer and a hug.  Oh and they were only 10mins away.  I signalled the waitress for the cheque, you should have seen the look on her face when she clocked the bird shit.  She asked if I wanted some more.  Erh no thanks, just the cheque.

So I busted a move down the boardwalk to the park where the finish line was and was there just in time to see them come in and to congratulate them.  We stayed to help clean up and then headed back to our hotel so that he could have a shower.  Our hotel was filled with old Scottish people for some reason and when we walked in, we had to walk through them as they listened to a really old man playing an organ.  It was odd and very creepy.  We managed to find a Chinese restaurant that was open late and although it was full of a stag do, the food was good.

The next day, we soon realised that we were the only ones under 30 in Eastbourne, we walked the pier and visited the lifeboat museum, turns out the oldies were rubbing off on the boyf who bought two tea towels?

So we decided to head home.  Turns out that I am rubbish at buying train tickets, even though I had purchased an open return, it was only for the same day, so I had to buy a whole new ticket.  Then when we finally got on the dumb train, we were settled and boyf thought that someone smelt so we had to move.  We got up to get off in Clapham Junction when I realized that I had left my backpack at the other seat on the top shelf thing.  It was no longer there – after some swearing under my breath, I was told that the conductor had removed it at Haywards Heath as no one had claimed it.  I hunted down the conductor who confirmed that this was the case and called them to tell them that I was coming back to get it.  Then he kindly wrote me a note saying that I could go back for free.  So I sent boyf home with all the luggage and set off again – two hours later I was finally home.  Less than impressed though.

So that was my chapter of disasters all within a 24 hour period.  My Mum laughed for a long time after this story.  It took me a while to get over it and the boyf didn’t last.  But it was the first and the last time I visited Eastbourne!