In the interest of full disclosure, I should inform you from the outset that I am no Brighty (I’m not sure if this is correct collective, but if not blame a boy called Charlie who I went to University with who assured me it was and also that his dad was one – big shout out to Charlie’s dad BTW). But ever since I married a man whose sister lives in the general vicinity, I have become something of a connoisseur of the process of getting to Brighton and sometimes, even of actually being there.
So last Saturday, with the multi-faceted lure of the (not so) mighty Norwich City’s much anticipated clash with The Seagulls combined with the potential for stuffing myself with cake at ChoccyWoccyDooDah welcome and purchasing lots of beautiful, kitschy and ultimately useless objects from The Lanes (favourite previous purchase – an Elvis straw holder), a familial visit with more ulterior motives than a ‘war on terror’ (check out the biting satire) was planned.
Getting from Brighton to Devon is vexing, no matter how you cut it. You can either go by train via London (not tempting) or you can drive. Intuitively driving feels like it should be quite nice, trundling along the south coast taking in the sea air/views and this was what was in the back of my mind when we set off on Saturday morning. However, I forgot (as I always seem to forget) driving to Brighton is a nightmare of sufficient magnitude to make transferring between Paddington and London Bridge seem like summer breeze.
It’s not just that you have to go all the way up to Salisbury and back down again to join up with the M27, it’s not even that the motorway runs out almost as soon you finish waving to the Spinnaker Tower (Just me then?). It’s simply the progression of roundabout, after roundabout, after roundabout, after roundabout, after roundabout which never fails to have me alternately screaming with rage and begging for respite (cyanide capsules) like the highway engineered version of Chinese water torture.
The more rational side of my brain is politely requesting at this point that I acknowledge that the rest of it (particularly the bit that controls the writing) is prone to massive exaggeration and so I will grudgingly accept that the journey does have some rays of sunshine to cut through the black clouds of frustration. For example, Beaver Tool Hire on the Chichester bypass never fails to raise a smile as we reminisce about the time they sold red, yellow and blue wheelbarrows in an attempt to predict the results of the 1997 general election or the time they had dummies of the Spice Girls on their roof with a (potentially quite rude) promotional message. No sooner have the smiles faded from our faces then we can swing into the age-old ‘Is Arundel Cathedral secretly Hogwarts?’ debate (I am very firmly in the ‘yes’ camp) and which can amuse us for a good 20 minutes, although we have come to accept the argument might never be finally resolved.
But eventually we do arrive, psychologically battered, fairly ill tempered and in physical disarray from the tribulations of the preceding few hours, but there nonetheless. As we’re swept up into the whirl of shopping/football activity which includes searching for a rumoured shop specialising in clothes for dogs and the victory of (the maybe mighty after all) Norwich City, we’re almost able to forget that we have to do the whole thing in reverse in about 6 hours time….
