I thought it would be a good idea to stay local to the Goodwood Festival of Speed (FoS), tomorrow’s adventure, so we can get in early. With local hotels booked, I looked further afield and happened on Brighton as a viable pre-FoS day out. I booked a seafront Hotel and we looked forward to a lovely stay.

We had an easy drive into Brighton, observing as we got the town that it’s a bit shabby in places and not in the shabby-chic way. We abandoned the first car park which was extremely tight and gloomy looking in favour of a car park under a Hotel, expensive, but looks safe.

We headed to the fashionable ‘Lanes’ where we had coffee at a trendy independent coffee shop.

After perusing a few shops we headed for the beach where we ate last night’s Risotto leftovers, a lot nicer than that sounds.

A beautiful sunny day with virtually no cloud, just endless blue sky and a shimmering sea, dotted with bathers and boats. It was all lovely and I dozed lightly on the pebbles and life was good.

A bit more browsing of the shops was followed by drinks and a snack in All-bar-one.

As check in was now open, we headed to our Hotel, the not-so-salubrious Royal Albion on the seafront. A rather run down establishment, we were disappointed with our room, a roomy first floor space with windows overlooking adjacent air conditioning which was rattling away cheerfully. We called up reception to see if any alternative was available, but only the windowless basement was offered. A fan was however provided and this was put to use, pushing the hot air around with little cooling effect [sigh]. We paid £182 for this one night privilege (no breakfast included) so we will later reflect on whether there is an lesson in this for us, or are quite a few seaside Hotels a bit crap and expensive. It’s all relative of course, and our night will be more comfortable than the homeless people we saw on the pavement earlier.