Woke up at 6.45AM. Mostly clear skies.
Blood Pressure 98/59 Pulse 73 We are visiting Steve and Mary in Etchingham. We made our way to Charing Cross. Had a few minutes to spare so we had a short walk around the Strand area. Got on our train with about 5 minutes to,spare. The train came in from Hastings and a lot of people got off. This was after 10 so it is unlikely if they were workers. Jenny thought that they looked as if they were up in London for the day. I wasn't sure. Not many people got on and we were shortly underway stopping at Waterloo East. Then on through a few stops including Tunbridge Wells ( as in outraged of Tunbridge Wells ) until we got to Etchingham. Steve met us at the train. Can I say that English Trains are of a higher standard than Australian Trains. Much higher. Its disappointing. Very smooth ride. Quite fast. I know that we have much larger distances to cover and have a much lesser population so we don't really want to confront the problem. Maybe we should admit defeat and do away with trains in Australia, Steve and Mary drove us around to give us a look at the place. We passed through Battle. I think that their actual address is Battle. The village is quite close. It looked very interesting. Just a small place. Steve and Mary live between villages in a house on a main road - well a main road for the area - about 3 metres wide - and they look out over farm land on the other side of the road to them. There are houses scattered along their road. They are not next to each other. The area is farm area. Sheep and crops. Steve has a schoolfreind who farms and Steve enjoys helping him out. Steve likes ploughing. And apparently does a lot of it. We went to Hastings and had a good look around. Quite a large place with the Old Town completely separate from the rest. We only looked at the Old Town. A bit like Warmington on Sea. Not many people present. Novelty Rock Emporium etc. Childrens dodgem cars etc. Very old fashioned merry go round. Old looking and empty choo choo train making its way around the seafront area. Lots of Electronic Games machines etc. Has a bit of a run down look to it. Pretty dodgy looking mini golf. It would have been exactly like this 100 years ago - except for the electronic games. Hardly any people about. The beach is a stone beach. The fishing fleet leaves from the beach. There is no wharf. The boats were all up on the beach. I don't know how they get them up to the beach except for maybe with the tide. There are a series of buildings near the boats are that look like Dinner Plain on Mt Hotham and these are used to dry the fish nets. They look modern but they are old buildings. And they are taking up what would be the most expensive real estate in town. Its odd. The town is cut into the cliff face. Tiny streets on many levels. The street follows the sea along the cliff wall for quite a way. The modern part of the town is over the other side of the hill. The rest of the town is surprisingly large. Looks like anywhere else really. The old fashioned boarding houses and bed and breakfasts that face the beach have been mostly purchased by out of towners and gentrified. A few small private hotels still open. Hardly any boarding houses left. A few large modern expensive looking hotels. This is indicative of Britain as a whole. It has changed. We took the Funicular Railway to the top of the cliff. We then walked to the top of the hill. A very good view from the top of the hill. The Hastings Beacon was being prepared for lighting tonight. We walked down through the various levels of the old town. Lots of little alleyways. Good views all the way down. We had lunch in a Pub. I had the full Monty. Bacon, Eggs, sausages, chips, fried onions and tomatoes and fried bread. A very small piece of lettuce and tomato for show. I kid you not. Jenny had spring vegetable soup. She didn't think it was vegetable soup when it arrived and asked the waitress if maybe they had her order wrong but she was assured it was spring vegetable soup. Steve had some baked beans and chips concoction. He has very specific dietary needs - in the Shane Wearne style. He will not eat anything with green or red in it. It has to have English in the name. He says his stomach cannot stand anything except bland pasta like food. Mary had Lasagna and salad. Steve picked the pub as he had eaten here before and said it was safe. Still it wasn't bad. The staff did try. All young English people. Not a black face anywhere. One interesting thing I have noticed on tube is the number of white girls in London who make themselves up to look dark skinned. I have seen girls I thought were Egyptian or middle eastern who have very elaborate hair and eye makeup but when you look at their hands they have white skin. I have seen girls who I thought had some Caribbean background - proper hair etc - slightly black skin - thick eyebrows - dressed all in black - crimson lipstick - but again when you look at their hands their skin is white. But not in Hastings. As our Afghan Phone dealer says the English still own the towns out of London - You have to go out of London to see English People. He actually said this. He was serious. Its not totally untrue. But of course all there are lots of types of English. The pub gave every appearance of being 400 years old but we learned later it was built in 1958. It was built entirely from wood salvaged from fishing boats and made to look old. Plaster and concrete mixed with local mud. They did a good job. Low ceilings. Creaky floors. Old wooden furniture. Very authentic looking. Maybe it was a bit Jerry built also to add to the authentic look. We drove back through Bexley. Now this was a different town. Very upmarket. No cheap tourist attractions here. Keeping a strict heritage look. I doubt if it ever had any tacky boarding houses. We passed Rudyard Kipling's house. National Trust owned and far too expensive to go into. In the thirties during the depression an eccentric local landowner helped the community out by spending money on what can only be described as bucket list tasks. He had one elaborate folly built, one large Egyptian like column and one reasonable sized pyramid built. Though not near as large as the real thing. The pyramid was to be his mausoleum and he is buried in it. Myth was he was buried sitting in a chair. But this turned out to be not true when another of his family wanted to be buried inside the mausoleum. We had a cup of tea at Steve and Mary's before catching the 6.18 back to Charing Cross. Seemed a quicker ride back but stopped at the same stations. Mary has been a long standing Liberal Democrat Candidate. The area is a strong Tory electorate. She did increase her vote with each subsequent election and if they had preferential voting she might have got in two elections ago. Of course the last election was a disaster. They are still reeling from it. I don't think they have had a proper post mortem even yet.
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